Vicissitudes
by storywriter30
Summary: And she looked so pale and stark and Ziva never got sick. Something deep inside of him told him this was more than your run of the mill flu. There was something really wrong here. And then he heard her scream his name.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I took down the original Vicissitudes because I couldn't get the beginning up to my standards. You'll notice this chapter is very similar to the original.**

**Summary: Tony and Ziva encounter a bump in their road to happiness - it causes Tony to ponder a serious question. Meanwhile, Rachel gets the chance to prove herself.**

* * *

**Chapter One**

_A not so distant date in the future. _

Tony slipped out of bed and pulled the drawer of the bedside table open. He rummaged through the contents until he came to a VHS case of _Love Story_. He opened it and pulled the small black box out. He laid it on his pillow and hurried out of the room. He eased the door just shut enough so that he would be able to see inside.

He sat down on the floor and waited.

She slept soundly for another ten minutes. It wasn't until she turned to her other side that she noticed his heat gone from the bed. That realization slowly pulled her from the depths of unconsciousness.

"Tony," she murmured. She rolled back onto her other side as if he would magically appear before her.

He watched her rise to the surface of consciousness and take inventory of her surroundings. She noticed that he wasn't there and then rolled to face the side of the bed that he should have been inhabiting. It was then that she first saw the velvet box.

His breath caught in his throat as he watched her nimble fingers pick the box off of the pillow. She held it in her hand for a moment and studied it, turning it around so that she could see each side on its own.

She didn't open it.

That made him all the more nervous.

Ziva pushed herself up in the bed and leaned back against the headboard. She crossed her legs underneath herself. She looked up from the box and opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, but nothing came out. She closed it again.

Ziva bit her lip and nervously tucked her hair behind her ear. She let her thumb pop the box open.

Catching only a glimpse of what was inside, she snapped it shut again and squeezed it tight it in her hands.

"Tony?" she called, her voice wavering somewhere between discomfort and amusement.

He waited five seconds before pushing himself off of the hard wood floors and opening the bedroom door. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"What's this?" She asked, hesitation clear in every word that came out of her mouth.

He cautiously crossed the room, as if any sudden movement might upset whatever equilibrium was currently in play. He sat down on the bed in front of her and held out his hand. Ziva dropped the box into his palm.

"What does it look like?" he returned.

"Tony…" she warned. "It's not like I found it accidently…"

" Nope, nothing accidental about _that_ placement." He agreed, staring at the spot on his pillow where the box had sat. "But I'm surprised that you didn't find it earlier. It's been in the house for a while."

"A while?"

"Yeah, I just didn't know if…with everything going on…it just didn't seem right. I wanted to wait until the moment was perfect."

"If this is your way of…" she left the word out for fear of what it would cause, "It is certainly not Oscar worthy."

"That hurts." He put a hand to his chest and feigned pain.

She ran a nervous hand through her hair before saying, rather candidly, "Its true."

"You're right; you're right." He said. He took a deep breath. "Sorry, that went better in my head. Can I start over?"

"Sure." She was still extremely skeptical of this whole _charade_.

"Ziva," he began

"Tony," she copied.

A smile crossed his face for a fraction of a second and then he turned serious again. "We've been through a lot together. It's really run the gamut." He paused. "I'll define that one later…"

She nodded.

"Anyway, some of its been good, _really_ good and some of it, well, its been really, _really_ bad. We're still here though. I mean, you and me, _together_. Its like all these years, all those times you wanted to kill me, every fight we've ever had – its like they were tests to see if we could handle each other. And, don't get me wrong, we didn't do well on all the tests – we cheated on a few, failed a couple, but I'm pretty sure we aced the midterm and the final." He stopped and caught the confusion on her face. "What I am saying is that, Ziva David, I love you. I've loved you for a long time and I've almost lost you a couple times now. And I know that we can't control really any of that, but, this, this we can. So, Zi, will you marry me?" The box popped back open and he placed it in her lap.

She smiled then and he noticed a faint glistening in her eyes. Maybe he hadn't done such a bad job, after all. She furiously wiped her eyes and stared at the ring.

"Can you…umm… usually, you answer the question…."

She forced herself to tear her eyes away from the princess cut diamond that stood proudly in the ring box and looked up at him. She was giggling now. "Yes, Tony." She said leaning forward and wrapping her arms around his neck. She knocked him over on the bed. "I would love to marry you."

* * *

_Wednesday, September 22__nd_

When Tony arrived back in the Squadroom at two o'clock in the morning, he was sure that he had never been happier to see his desk. He'd been running all day and the idea of sitting in his padded chair was just intoxicating.

They were in the middle of a case. While on base at Naval Air Station Oceana, Lieutenant James Bradley's sixteen-year-old daughter had gone missing.

Lt. Bradley was completing an eight-week course at Oceana's Naval and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center.

Megan Bradley hadn't gone with her mother and younger brother to visit her father the weekend before, so she'd gone to visit him the following Sunday alone.

Most of the guys in this particular course were in their thirties; they'd done active duty a few times and were looking for something more – another way to aid the cause. James Bradley fit that bill perfectly. He was thirty-eight, he'd served three tours of duty, been promoted and found that his true calling was in intelligence work. He was well liked among his unit and deeply missed by everyone at home.

The men usually had Sundays to themselves save for their afternoon meeting with their superiors. During Lt. Bradley's forty-five minute meeting, Megan was supposed to be doing homework in one of the barrack's community rooms. When Bradley returned an hour later, Megan's things were laid out on the table, but she was nowhere to be found.

Gibbs had sent Tony back to the Navy Yard just a few hours ago. He was keeping the rest of the team on base for the night so that they could interview Bradley's friends in the morning, but had wanted Tony to coordinate with the FBI back at the Navy Yard.

So, he had done what he was told and now he was sitting in an empty bullpen waiting for his computer to turn on so that he could reconnect with the FBI's Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He had to make sure they hadn't picked up any chatter about Megan's possible whereabouts. It was pretty clear that she hadn't left by her own devices.

His desktop screen came into view and as he waited for the rest of the icons to load, the date caught his attention.

_September 22. _

Tony fell back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. Prior to getting this case, the date had been the only thing he thought about all summer. Everyday for the last three months, he would stare at her and wonder if she was reliving what atrocity had been thrust upon her on that particular day. Ziva had assured him, on more than one occasion, that she hardly thought about it and that the days had all blurred together so she couldn't remember anything if she tried.

He wasn't sure if he believed her but he'd stopped the questioning and taken to holding her tighter than usual in the middle of the night, instead.

Tony had been waiting for this day through those months. Today, he had planned on reliving the weight of her body against him, that moment when he got to look into her eyes again, the elation that he had allowed himself to feel for a brief moment on the plane because _she was alive_.

Instead though, he found himself watching her throw up water onto the blinding desert sand, he felt her head against his chest and the shallow breaths of her chest as they drove to the nearest military outpost. Instead, he saw the pain and suffering in her eyes and the difficult road that lay ahead of her. He hated this day. He hated this day and he wanted her here with him.

Looking back, this past summer and spring had been a great time for them. Ziva was _almost_ her old self again and the team had had a relatively quiet few months. This gave Tony and Ziva the chance to spend a long weekend away on vacation. They had driven up the east coast and taken the ferry over to the famous island of Martha's Vineyard. Instead of spending their days looking for where _Jaws_ had been filmed, as Tony had originally intended, they had spent warm days laying on the beach together, and cool nights walking hand in hand down South Beach at sunset. They'd eaten a candlelit dinner on the harbor and raced each other on bikes all over the island. It had been _perfect_ and left Tony idly thinking about how perfect the rest of their life could be.

Tony was sure that this summer they had exited the honeymoon phase of living together and settled into a more _normal_ pattern. Ziva was feisty again; something he'd _desperately_ missed and they often fought about keeping the apartment clean and being on time for work. He put up with her obsessive-compulsive cleanliness and she learned how to gently push him out the door.

He liked it.

The remainder of his desktop loaded and he dialed the FBI.

* * *

_Friday, October 8__th_

It had been almost a week since Rachel and Ziva had arrived back from their trip to upstate New York and Ziva just had this feeling she couldn't shake. She just didn't feel right. Maybe Rachel wasn't the only one emotionally scarred from their trip and it's events – maybe it had taken a toll on Ziva too.

It wouldn't surprise her. She'd felt overly emotional lately. Rachel's discovery had reminded her how much rejection stung, especially when it was by someone who wasn't supposed to do that to you – someone who was supposed to want you no matter what. Sometimes it scared Ziva how much their lives mirrored each other.

She sighed and rose to grab a report off the printer. The MCRT had gotten a case while the two were away and Ziva and Rachel had spent the last few days playing catch up. She had just received a list of chemical properties from a spray-tanning manufacturer that needed to go to Abby to determine if there was a match.

"Ziva," Tony whispered as she walked by, causing her to stop by the bullpen partition and throw him a questioning glance.

"Are you feeling okay?" he asked, voice still low. He probably knew that asking her such a question at work would cause her the desire to castrate him when they got home.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

He shrugged his shoulders, "You look a little…pale."

She rolled her eyes at him and walked away, retrieving the paper from the printer and walking it down to Abby's lab. So maybe this nauseous feeling she had inside of her wasn't a result of she and Rachel's road trip gone wrong. Ziva tried to remember what she and Tony had eaten last night. There was no way that it was Eddie's burritos. They ate those things all the time and she'd had a homemade salad for lunch.

She felt like she'd been hit by a truck when she walked into Abby's lab; the base pumping and light from the window creating a glare. Ziva gave her friend the report and made an excuse for needing to leave so quickly and headed back up to the quiet of the squadroom. She allowed herself to take the elevator, not the stairs. She hadn't slept well since they'd returned and figured that that was why she was feeling so _crappy_.

Tony gave her another concerned glare as she sat back down at her desk and Ziva found herself wishing that their desk weren't across from each other. He was too able to scrutinize her and although she didn't usually mind it, today it was just getting under her skin.

Almost an hour later Gibbs called for an update and the team stood in front of the plasma TV to review their current knowledge of the case. As Rachel was going over she and McGee's interview with the victim's sister, Ziva felt a debilitating wave of vertigo come over her. Her hips swayed slightly and then suddenly her face was making contact with McGee's shoulder.

* * *

Ziva woke up on the ground, Ducky's face leering over her. Momentarily, she was confused and then it all came back to her and she was fiercely embarrassed. She tried to sit up and get off of what she imagined was a filthy carpet, but a hand came from behind and held her down.

"Nice try," Tony murmured.

"My dear," Ducky said, "Please don't get up too quickly."

She waved them both off. "I'm fine, Ducky," She began to sit up when another wave of nausea hit and she slowly lowered herself back down to the ground. She'd wait just a minute.

McGee came into view and handed her a cup of water. She sat up just enough to be able to take up sip. Gulping the water down, Ziva realized the spinning of the room had slowed down a bit. She pushed herself off the ground, Tony's hand's coming up under her arms and staying there once she was on her feet. She had to admit her knees might have buckled again if he hadn't been anchoring her.

She twisted her head back and nodded at him, before turning to the rest of the group. "Sorry, everyone, I'm fine now."

Gibbs turned his head at her and huffed. He turned back to his desk and picked up the phone. "I'm calling Abby to take you home."

Her eyes widened and she came up behind him to protest. "Gibbs, I'm fine, really."

"It's an order, David," he said.

* * *

**Please let me know what you thought - it's always appreciated. **

**-Cara**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thought I'd get the second one up fast to make up for the fact that I abandoned the story's original path. Keep in mind that the time frame is alway shifting.**

* * *

**Chapter**** Two**

_Thursday, September 23__rd_

Gibbs sighed when he hung up the phone and turned to look at his team. This investigation was going _nowhere_. They had a makeshift office set up in one of the base conference rooms. There were only three NCIS agents permanently stationed at Oceana and their offices were about the size of the Gibbs' private conference room. It was nothing close to the amount of space the MCRT was used to working with, but they knew how to adapt.

McGee was working with a couple of Oceana's NCIS agents, reviewing base security footage. So far, they'd been unable to come up with any footage of Megan Bradley – neither before she disappeared, nor while she was being taken. They had no leads and Gibbs was almost at his breaking point.

Ziva was sitting at the table in front of him, her back towards him, consoling Amy Bradley. Megan was their oldest child and Lt. Bradley was due to ship out in two weeks. If Gibbs had any say, they'd find Megan way before that.

He'd seen a shift in Ziva in the last few months. She had relaxed a bit – settled back into a routine. He wouldn't comment on the fact that Tony probably had something to do with that. Not that he wasn't happy for them, he was – he was pretty sure that they were now headed down the right path, but Gibbs was still a little nervous. He didn't want her to get hurt; she'd been through enough and deserved so much. He also, though, didn't want his team destroyed. They were a talented bunch and he was hoping to keep them together until he retired – whenever that would be. Despite his history, though, he knew that Tony was doing his best and that he wouldn't let her down. So, for now, Gibbs was content with just sitting back and watching – seeing what happened with them. They _had_ been able to keep it out of the office.

He moved from his place against the wall and took a seat next to Ziva. He waited until she finished her latest thought with Mrs. Bradley and then asked the anxious parent if she wouldn't mind him stealing Ziva for a moment.

In the hallway he sighed and told her that he had an idea – an idea that she probably wouldn't like.

* * *

_Friday, October 8__th_

Tony was greeted by complete and utter darkness when he returned from the Navy Yard.

He had figured she would be resting – she certainly needed to and he definitely wanted her to, but it looked as if no one was home. There wasn't a single light on in the whole place and he held his breath for a moment, determined to hear a noise, indicating her whereabouts, but simply heard the hum of the radiator.

Tony shut the door behind himself and dropped his backpack on the ground. He slipped his shoes off in an effort not to disturb the peace.

It wasn't until he turned on a lamp on the table next to the couch that he noticed her sleeping form on the cushions below. Wrapped in a blanket, she was curled up on only one cushion of the couch, her head buried in the pillow.

He crouched down by her head and looked at her for a moment. Her hands were curled under her chin, her knees, almost touching her chest. Her lips were pursed together and she wasn't moving at all. Tony watched her chest rise just a bit and determined that he didn't need to check for a pulse.

"Zi?" he whispered, "Ziva?"

"Mhmmm."

She still looked so pale – so stark and gray. He'd been hoping that she would look better than she had when Abby drove her home from the office. He'd spent all day thinking of what the grayish tint to her skin and the lack of equilibrium could mean – overtiredness, dehydration, iron deficiency. It could be any number of things.

"Have you had anything to drink?" He asked. He ran his fingers through her hair.

"Mhmmm."

"Anything to eat?" he prompted.

"Hmm?"

"Ziva," he rubbed her shoulder still trying to pull her from the boroughs of her REM cycle, "Come on, you should have something to eat. I'll make you anything."

She didn't make any move to get up so he ran his hand along her cheek and spoke again. "Zee-vah?"

She sighed and, he sensed regretfully, opened her eyes. Tony offered her a trademark smile as she pushed herself into a sitting position. "I can't eat," she yawned, "I have the most unbelievable cramps." She groaned, collapsing against the back of the couch again. "I just want to go back to sleep in bed."

And he swore that she sounded like a grumpy, whiney child.

He nodded his head in understanding and sighed along with her. How could he force her to do anything she didn't want to when she sounded like _that_?

Getting up from the floor, he offered her his hand. She took it and pulled herself off of the couch. As she moved to take her first step towards the bedroom, though, her gait faltered and she fell backwards into Tony's chest.

"I've got you," he said, he caught her and then scooped her off her feet, one arm under her knees and one arm sliding around her back.

"I can barely move," she groaned, laying her head against his shoulder.

"If you're not getting better in an hour or so," he said, carefully making his way down the hallway with Ziva in his arms, "We should really get you to the hospital."

"Tony, I'm not _that_ sick." She scoffed, life suddenly filling her voice again.

He fought the urge to say _right, that's why I'm carrying you to bed _and just sighed. "I'm worried about you." He sat her down on the side of the bed so that he could pull the covers down and fix the pillows. When he was done, he helped her settled against the mountain of support that he had created.

"I know," she said, unwilling to argue with such genuine motives. "How about this, I won't let you take me to the hospital but, you can sit here and wait on me hand and leg."

"Yeah, alright," he said, choosing to ignore the mistaken idiom. "Good compromise – unless your skin color doesn't come back to normal." He ran his thumb along her cheek.

She rolled her eyes at him.

"I'm going to make you some tea, okay?"

He patted her leg before resigning himself to the kitchen. Tony turned the kettle on and waited a moment for it to whistle.

She really didn't look good. He couldn't remember a time when she'd been this sick. Everyone got sick – a common cold and the occasional flu and he doubted that she was any different, but he sensed that _this_ was something different. She just didn't look _right _and he didn't feel_ right_ about it. The kettle whistled and he poured the steaming hot water into her favorite mug.

"Tony?" she called from the bedroom.

The tone of her voice made him stop sifting through the various packets of tea that they kept in the cabinet. She sounded so…_scared_.

He caught her wide and anxious and all together frightened eyes first when he came through the door. Then, looking down to the bed, he saw that the place that she'd been laying was covered in blood. The white sheets were stained bright, crimson red – the circle extending almost a foot in diameter.

* * *

_Thursday, September 23__rd_

Rachel was reviewing the list of suspects when Ziva walked into the room. She had taken her work into another room at the beginning of the investigation, unable to concentrate with all the noise going on around her. That, and she needed to be alone. It had only been a week since she'd broken up with Aiden and, truth be told, she hadn't realized that it would be so hard. They had a great summer together, but, ultimately, Rachel didn't think it was fair to lead him on when she had no desire to move the relationship forward at all.

Still, she missed him.

Rachel looked up from her work and caught the look on Ziva's face. "What happened?" she asked.

"I just spent an hour talking with Mrs. Bradley. We still have no leads."

"You're kidding me."

Ziva shook her head. She sat down at the table in front of Rachel and clasped her hands together. She took a deep breath and then looked up at Rachel. "You have been in here reviewing suspects for the past week?" She asked.

"Yeah…" Rachel said. Her training from the CIA made her the optimal person to try and put the pieces together. She was happy to do her part – always happy to be needed.

"Gibbs has asked me to speak to you about something. He knows that you would never say no to him… but that you would waver in front of me."

"What does her want me to do, Ziva?" She had Rachel's full attention now.

"Rachel, you can say no if you're uncomfortable." Ziva reminded.

"What am I saying no to?" She asked, confused as to why Ziva was being so evasive, it was unlike her.

"Obviously, it has been a week without any leads and the clock is clearly ticking. If we want to find Megan alive, it's going to have to be soon. Gibbs is worried that the situation is escalating and quickly getting out of hand. He thinks the only chance we might have –"

Rachel cut her off, "He wants me to go undercover."

Ziva sighed, unable to read her friend's face. "Yes."

I'm in," Rachel said. Because she had no reservations about going undercover with this team – none. And Ziva would think that she was lying, trying to prove herself, but she wasn't. This was her specialty. She was the young female on the team. It was her place and she would do it and if something went wrong there wasn't a doubt in her mind that they would come for her.

"Rachel," Ziva said, "You don't have to do this."

"I know," Rachel said, getting from her chair, "But I want to. Trust me, Ziva… I trust you."

* * *

_Friday, October 8__th_

The only time that he seriously considered calling someone – and by someone he meant Rachel – was during the fifty-five minutes that he spent in the waiting area of Bethesda Naval Hospital's Emergency Room. He had sworn that he was going to go crazy and thought she might be able to witness his certification. He hadn't called her on their way to the hospital – he'd been too busy driving erratically and worrying about Ziva.

_Ziva_.

Ziva, who had been sitting in the passenger seat next to him, silently shaking and scared out of her mind.

That made two of them.

He didn't actually _want_ to call anyone because telling people that he was scared and that there was something wrong made it actually true. He couldn't tell himself that this was a nightmare. If others knew then this was, once _again_, real life.

He pulled his cell phone out of his back pocket and thought about what he was going to say. There was the classic DiNozzo humor deflection. _Hey, Rach, how's your evening, I think I'm losing Ziva again._ Rachel would see through his humor and be next to him in heartbeat. Then, there was the more serious one. _Rachel, Ziva's sick. I don't know what's wrong_. He thought he'd go with some combination of the two.

"Mr. DiNozzo?"

A young brunette in a white lab coat broke him out of his trance and prevented him from taking the plunge and dialing the numbers. She held a file in her arm and didn't look a day over thirty. Had his life – or, _Ziva's_ life, not currently been in this particular state, he would have dared to think she was attractive.

"Ah, yeah, that's me," he snapped out of his seat.

She smiled, slightly amused at him and took a seat in the chair next to him. Her coat said _OBGYN_ on it and his world got just a bit more confusing. _Why was a pregnant lady doctor talking to him?_ She opened the file, looked at a paper and then looked back up at Tony.

"You're Ms. David's next of kin, are you aware of that?" She asked, her tone professional and straight to business.

"Um… yeah, yeah I knew that." Because he had, right? They'd done that a while ago – before _anything_ had happened. Partners needed access to each other's medical information in case of an emergency. It was only practical.

"Okay, well, I'm Dr. Samantha Blair, I treated her when she came in," she reached out her hand and he shook it. "Now, would you like to go somewhere more private or is talking here alright?"

"Umm…" he thought for a moment and glanced around the nearly desolate waiting area, "Here's fine," because moving somewhere else would take time and he really just wanted to see Ziva as soon as possible. He sat back down in his chair, still a little unsure of what was going on.

"It's a formality," she said, her tone softening and a small smile warming her face, "And this is a formality, too – what's your relationship to the patient?"

He scratched the back of his head, "Dating?" _But married in my head?_

"Monogamously?"

"Yeah, we live together." He said, slightly skeptical as to why he had to answer such a question and whether Dr. Blair thought that he was doing extracurricular activities.

She noted his answer in the file and then shook her head, apologetically, "Sorry, I always hate asking that." She offered him a friendly shrug of the shoulders, but he was still too confused and bewildered at the whole situation to form an opinion of the seemingly bubbly OBGYN.

He nodded.

"Anyway, I was just able to fully go through Ms. David's medical file and with this new information we are pretty sure that she has a bacterial infection steaming from…" She paused and pursed her lips, a telltale sign of discomfort, "…the series of sexual assaults she endured while being held prisoner. It isn't all together uncommon due to the region."

He recognized that the Doctor had chosen her words carefully and tried to lessen the blow, but it only reignited an old fire inside of Tony that could still burn brighter than the sun. "That was more than a year ago." He countered.

Dr. Blair nodded. "This particular strain has a tendency to lay dormant until a change in hormone levels. Mr. DiNozzo, there's no easy way to put this –" She paused and he noticed the empathetic look cross over her face that always crossed over his own before he notified the family of a deceased sailor.

"What?"

Dr. Blair sighed and clasped her hands together over the folder, "Ms. David was just about three weeks pregnant. Unfortunately, due to the infection and its symptoms, that pregnancy was lost earlier this evening."

And Tony was convinced, in that moment, that everything ceased. Because not only had he and Ziva had a _baby_ – they'd had a baby together - but they'd lost it. It – because they would never know if it was a boy or a girl – was gone. And he wanted to kill Saleem Ulman and, hell, Eli David, all over again.

"She was _pregnant_?" he repeated slowly. Because there was no part of him that could believe that this horror was currently playing in front of him.

Dr. Blair nodded. "She was, yes." She sighed. "Though this doesn't make it any easier, Mr. DiNozzo, it isn't uncommon for high risk pregnancies – which Ms. David's would have been classified as – to end very early like this."

He nodded slowly and, no that didn't make it any easier because a twenty-eight year old in perfect physical shape, should not have a high-risk pregnancy. He ran his hands up his neck and over his face and through his hair. They'd been pregnant? _Pregnant_. He looked back up at the woman in front of him and suddenly, he felt stupid for not putting the pieces together earlier.

The _cramps_.

The _blood_.

The _OBGYN_.

"I'm sorry," he stuttered, his voice choking on the words, "What exactly happened?"

"So, when Ms. David –"

"Ziva." He corrected.

"Ziva." She nodded. "When Ziva's body first registered that she was pregnant, her hormone levels began to rise – all something that is to be expected. This caused the dormant bacteria inside of her, though, to…sort of… gain back its vigor. The bacterial infection went into high gear, you could say. This, of course, caused the fever and the appearance of anemia. This led to the early loss of the pregnancy."

"So, if we'd been in earlier?" he dared to ask.

She placed a comforting hand on the almost father-to-be's arm and shook her head. "No, Mr. DiNozzo, this infection would have been deadly had it gone for a prolonged period of time without treatment. Unfortunately, there was no way to save both lives."

He nodded again.

"You did all the right things." She assured.

He continued nodding, his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him, because he was pretty sure that there were tears coming out of them now. He knew that there were probably more questions that he needed to be asking. But right now, he didn't even know what they were.

"Can I see her?" he asked.

* * *

**Please let me know what you think! **

**: ) Cara. **


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thanks for all the reviews and favorites and such to the first two chapters. I appreciate you sticking with me as I try to figure this story out.**

**Just as a reminder, this is the sequel to Lock and Key: Rachel's Story and I highly recommend you read that before this.**

* * *

**Chapter**** Three**

_Thursday, September 23__rd_

McGee wasn't one to complain about his team. He never had been; they were some of his best friends, as sad as that sounded to _some_ people. Having said this, this past summer he had realized what a wonderful addition Rachel had been to the team. Not only was she nicer to him than the combined Tony and Ziva, but she also created a buffer and he was no longer the odd man out and third wheel.

It had been perfect timing – Tony and Ziva became closer than ever and just when McGee thought that all hope was lost, Rachel appeared. If anything, Tony and Ziva were now the awkward fourth wheel to the three musketeers of he, Rachel and Abby.

Well… maybe that was taking it a bit too far…

Tim was Rachel's de facto partner and they had spent a significant amount of time alone together this summer and this past spring when she had been completely cleared as a full field agent. He had learned a lot about her childhood and her time at the Agency.

So, one can understand why, a day later, he was still having a hard time understanding why she was so quick to go on an undercover mission – a dangerous one at that.

Tony had just returned to Oceana, this time with Abby in tow. She had an assortment of trackers and communication devices that he had to attach to Rachel. The two of them were sitting in one of the conference rooms that the MCRT had commandeered into a mini MTAC.

"What's got you all tensed up?" Abby asked. She'd been watching him since she'd arrived. First it had been because she'd really missed him over the past week, but then she'd realized that there was something off about him and she'd taken to studying him even closer.

"I just have a bad feeling about this, Abs." He responded, a little too quickly, indicating to Abby that he'd been brooding for quite some time.

"Rachel's very capable."

"I just think she might have the wrong motivations, you know?"

"No, I don't know, McGee," Abby said, "I mean, I talked to her this morning about it. She was very clear that she was doing this because she was the right choice and because she knew you guys would have her back."

"Yeah, I know we will." He went back to working on the trackers, but Abby sensed that they hadn't all together cleared this up and she was beginning to wonder if McGee had ulterior motives…not that she would care, but…

"You're not falling for her, are you?" She asked, a little scared of what his answer could be and a little surprised that her brain had actually let that question out of her mouth.

"What?" McGee nearly fell out of his chair. "No, she's my partner, Abby, and that's why I'm so bothered. I've never had my own partner before…"

"Oh. Well. In that case, McGee that's adorable! _And_ as her partner you'll have her back and she'll be fine." Abby smiled at him and for more than one reason.

"She's not my type, anyway."

* * *

_Just after midnight, Saturday, October 9__th_

She was sedated. She had been, _evidently_, since they had realized what was going on when she was in triage. He figured that she was still sedated simply to torture him.

It couldn't be to keep her comfortable… or to let her rest.

Tony leaned back in his chair and tried to close his eyes. He had been determined to stay awake until she woke up, but it looked like that could be a while. His new goal was to take a quick nap while she was still unwillingly slumbering and be in top shape for her when she awoke. Whenever _that_ would be.

Dr. Blair and her nurses and even a few residents had been in several times since he'd settled into this chair. Dr. Sammy, as he had nicknamed her in his head, had informed him that because Ziva was being pumped with such high level antibiotics, her vitals needed to be carefully monitored. And carefully monitor they had, every twelve minutes Nurse Callie would come in, the little red head who had offered to sit with Ziva while Tony took a walk, and every hour Dr. Sammy came back in with one of her many residents.

He looked at his watch. Callie was due back any minute. He couldn't close his eyes just yet. He had to watch her face as she read Ziva's monitors. He didn't want any more fast ones pulled on him. This evening had been enough, _thank you very much_.

The glass door slid open and he watched Callie slip through the yellow curtain that shrouded Ziva's room from the outside hallway.

"How's our patient?" she asked conversationally as she read Ziva's heart rate monitor and her oxygen levels.

"No change," he groaned. He wondered how often she had to cater to the scattered emotions of a sleeping patient's significant other.

She pulled the stethoscope from around her neck and listened to Ziva's chest for a few seconds. "That's a good thing," Callie reminded. "She's not in any pain or distress. It's better for her to sleep through the worst. This particular antibiotic is pretty painful during the first few doses."

Tony rubbed his eyes and then nodded. "Well, when you put it that way…"

Callie took a seat in the chair on the opposite side of Ziva's bed. She reached for the chart on the tray table and scribbled some notes in it, looking up to check the monitors for consistency. When she was done, she clicked her pen shut and clipped it back to her I.D. badge.

"How you holding up?" she asked, slouching further into the chair and crossing her arms over the binder.

Tony shook his head and let out a small, sad chuckle, "You probably have ten other patients needing to be checked up on,"

"Actually, I don't, that's the beauty of the ICU; I'm all hers… and yours – until she wakes up that is – then I'm just hers."

"I had forgotten that we were in the ICU," he mumbled.

"It's just because of the high level antibiotics given to someone whose body is already under trauma. She's going to be fine, though, don't let this location fool you. It's always about the patient and she seems like a fighter."

"She is." Tony's voice piped up a bit. She had no idea just how much of a fighter Ziva was, in every sense of the word.

Callie grabbed the chart again and flipped it open. "So, she's NCIS. What are you? Just a really great boyfriend? You're listed as her partner at work on the proxy."

He chuckled. "Both."

"You Dad?" she asked a little more solemnly.

"Yeah," he sighed, "that'd be me too.

She nodded and then got up from her chair. "Well, you certainly seem like a good guy, certainly been here a long time." Callie got up from her chair and moved back towards the bed.

"So, I'm the first pathetic guy you've had to talk to in the middle of night?"

"No, not the first, but among a selective group." She checked Ziva's hung bag of antibiotics, taking a moment to study the drip. "Have you called family or anyone?" she asked, "It could be a long night and day tomorrow, for that matter."

"Its kind of late." Tony said.

"People usually forgive late night calls from the ICU, I've made some on other's behalf. Trust me, they forget the time pretty quickly."

"Noted," he smiled and paused before asking his question. He wasn't sure if it was appropriate. "Um…Callie, Dr. Blair is pretty young… she's a doctor right?"

Callie laughed and turned away from the monitors to look at Tony. "Yes, she is a real doctor. Just finished her last year of residency, but she's really great."

"I had to ask." He explained.

"It's understandable." She said stepping towards the door. "Let me know if you need anything."

He nodded and closed his eyes.

* * *

_Thursday, September 23__rd_

It was in the last of the MCRT commandeered conference rooms that Tony found Ziva. He'd poked his head in door after door so, when he caught a glimpse of the back of her head, he slipped into the room and shut the door behind him – extremely happy to be back near the woman that he was head over heels in love with.

Under no illusion that he was surprising her, he squeezed her shoulder before sitting down in the chair next to her.

He'd really missed her, _especially_ after yesterday.

"Abby found me before you did." She taunted, not looking up from the work that she was doing.

"_Well_, Abby can get away with looking for you first, I can't." He sighed.

She laughed and then tore her eyes away from the laptop and settled them on her partner. He looked tired, drained. "Did you get a good night sleep last night?" she asked.

He chuckled and shook his head. "Funny, I slept at my desk – not nearly as comfortable as sleeping next to you."

"You wouldn't have done that here either," she reminded.

He pouted and then leaned forward and cupped her cheek in his hand. He brushed her lips once with his before hovering just far enough away to torture the both of them. "I know and it's slowly killing me." He kissed her again. "And I'm usually on my best behavior at work, but considering we've been at work for a days now… it's getting a little challenging." And he kissed her again. "I mean, Ziva, come on, its been almost a week since –"

She laughed low in throat and he swore she did it just to torture him, "We need to stop, imagine if Gibbs walked in." She leaned in and kissed him on the side of the mouth, whispering, "Last one."

In an effort to control himself, he shifted towards the table and took inventory of what she was working on the computer. Still needing a fix, though, he grabbed her hand off of the keyboard and wove his fingers between her own, squeezing her hand a couple of times.

She turned her head at him and raised an eyebrow in warning.

"Indulge me," he pleaded, exasperated.

She nodded.

"So," he asked, turning the conversation to the big news of the day, "How's our girl going to do undercover?"

"Not as well as we did." She smirked.

"Okay, now you're just being plain mean to me." He said.

"It _was_ fun, though, and I think it really bonded us."

"Right," he nodded. "Sure," There was absolutely no way that he could take this discussion seriously right now. "Can we discuss the Rainers later?" Because, honestly, they just turned Tony's mind toward that silky green dress that she'd been wearing and she'd been so…_devilish_ back then and he was at work and really couldn't be thinking about what that made him want to do.

"Rachel can take care of herself, but I would by lying to you if I told you that I was not a bit nervous for her." Ziva said. Her words becoming heavier as she admitted that yes, she was just a little scared.

"It's just because there are so many question marks." Tony shook his head. He didn't know when, but at some point in the last six or nine months he'd become very protective of Rachel. "Nothing can really be planned. We'll have her back though."

"I know," she nodded and then changed the subject. "I'm going over base phone records. Nothing out of the ordinary."

"This guy's good. Rachel may be our only shot."

"That was her thought."

"Think he'll take the bait?" he asked.

"Is that an idiom?"

"It is."

"Then yes." She said.

* * *

_Early Morning, Saturday, October 9__th_

Ziva's first urge when she became more than slightly coherent was to scream. She almost did, but then she realized she was in a hospital, an American hospital. She held her breath and stifled the scream. She was fine.

_Well…_

She closed her eyes and counted to ten.

She couldn't remember how she'd gotten here. She hadn't been feeling too great at work, but that was just a cold or overtiredness.

When she opened her eyes again, she turned her head slightly to the left and noticed a sleeping man in the chair next to her bed, a sleeping Tony, to be exact.

Her heart rate slowed down a little bit.

She tried to sit up and reach for his hand… and that was when she felt the IV tug at her arm. Ziva winced as pain raced through her hand and up her arm.

She heard the glass door slide open and watched as a young nurse stepped in front of the yellow curtain. When they made eye contact, the nurse's face brightened.

"Hey there," she sang.

Ziva managed a small smile.

"Very impressive, we brought down your sedation just an hour ago and here you are." Ziva watched her open her chart and make a few notes; she adjusted some wires behind Ziva's bed and tapped the touch screen monitors. "I'm Callie, by the way. I've been your nurse since you came up from the Emergency Room at like eleven."

She nodded and watched as Callie took the stethoscope from around her neck and told her that she was just going to take a quick listen. She was silent as she breathed in and out as the nurse asked.

"Do you want me to wake him?" Callie asked, nodding towards Tony, the chest piece of the stethoscope now on Ziva's back.

"Has he been here all night?" She spoke for the first time.

"Sitting right in that chair. He hasn't moved at all." Callie said, a hint of awe evident in her voice.

She nodded again. "Let him sleep."

"I'm going to call your doctor, Dr. Blair, and let her know that you're awake and see if she can come down and talk to you about everything."

"What exactly happened?" Ziva asked.

"You have a pretty severe bacterial infection," Callie said, "And that basically caused you some problems, but I don't want to give you the wrong diagnosis, so I'm going to call Dr. Blair."

She turned towards the door and Ziva suddenly felt like she wasn't being told something. She was in a hospital ICU. She didn't know why. She had unbelievable cramps in her stomach and whatever was pulsing through her IV was ridiculously potent and the only coherent person in the room who could tell her what exactly happened was refusing. That wasn't a good sign – she knew that.

Her eyes drifted to Tony. Maybe she _should_ have let the nurse wake him up. She could really use him right now. Then again, he _had_ been here all night and wasn't that enough, shouldn't she let him sleep? She told herself to relax. She was overreacting – something that had newly become characteristically her.

Seemingly noticing Ziva's growing discomfort, Callie turned back towards her before sliding the door open. "You know," she said "I'm going to wake him."

She walked over to Tony's chair and patted him on the shoulder a couple of times. He violently sprang back to life.

* * *

**Let me know what you think. **

**Cara**

**P.S. Shameless plug: follow me on tumblr: justtakethejump. :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

_Thursday, September 23__rd_

Rachel was rifling through her suitcase, looking for something that would make her look more like a teenager when Gibbs knocked on her door. She'd brought the basics when she'd packed for Oceana. She hadn't expected to be here this long and she hadn't expected to have play dress up.  
She'd tried to keep busy all day. Rachel knew that her going undercover could be the only chance that they had at finding Megan Bradley – at this point, the team's only theory was that it was a random, on base kidnapping and the only way to test that theory was to send Rachel out as bait. She knew that she was doing the right thing – the only thing – but part of her couldn't help but be scared. She'd gone undercover dozens of times when she'd been training at The Farm and she'd done some local work in the states, but that last mission in Prague had really freaked her out and she couldn't help but worry that something like that would happen again.

When she heard the light tap on the door and the low voice asking if he could come in, Rachel pushed herself off the ground, tearing herself away from the pile of clothes she had now created and opened the door. Gibbs came in and took a seat in the chair against the wall.

"I didn't mean to interrupt," he said, motioning to mess on the ground.

"It's fine. I'm just looking for something to wear."

Gibbs nodded his head and went back to sipping his coffee, silently watching his most junior agent.

Rachel could feel his concerned stare on her back, but she wasn't yet comfortable enough with Gibbs to come right out and ask him why he was here, in her room, watching her. She also wasn't comfortable enough to admit that yes, she was a little bit scared of what was to come. Though, she suspected he already knew that.

"You would of said no to Ziver." Rachel couldn't tell if he was making a statement or asking her a question so she turned to look at him and answered as if it were a question.

"If I felt that I really couldn't do it, then, yes, I would have."

"These types of things, Williams, can be dangerous. Its why they're voluntary."

"I know that. _Both_ of those things."

"Then why are you doing it?" He asked.

"Because if I were Megan Bradley I would want someone with _my_ training coming for me. That's why you asked and that's why I said yes."

He nodded and she had picked up over the last few months that that was his cue to continue.

"I don't have some type of twisted ulterior motive. I just want to help an innocent Navy brat."

* * *

_Saturday Morning, October 9__th_

Chief Resident Pina Malrani had spent the past week convinced that medicine wasn't interesting anymore. She was doing the same things everyday, seeing the same patients. She was beginning to think that she should have gone into fashion or something else, instead.

And then Samantha Blair, her favorite OBGYN to learn under swooped in and handed her Ziva David's file. This was why she became a doctor – this was an interesting case, a heart breaking case, but an interesting one nonetheless.

"You paged?" she asked, approaching Callie's station outside the patient's room.

"Yes!" Callie said, spinning around to face her.

Callie was one of Pina's favorite ICU nurses. She was always in a good mood and had the bubbliest personality. It was why she took care of most of Dr. Blair's most involved patients. She could handle the patients and the family.

"She's awake, I was hoping you or Dr. Blair could talk to her about everything."

"Samantha is in surgery, but I can." Pina responded. She'd done plenty of patient conferences before and, plus, she'd really read up on this one. Any question they had, Pina would be able to answer.

"Okay, great," Callie said, "Just a heads up, Pina, the boyfriend is a little…attentive… almost intense."

"Well," Pina sighed with a smile, "He certainly has a right to be."

"You know her history, right?" Callie checked.

Pina nodded and then slid the door open and stepped in front of the curtain. "Hey, guys," she greeted the patient and her boyfriend, giving a small wave to both, "I'm Dr. Pina Malrani, Chief Resident here, Dr. Blair is in surgery, she should be out shortly, but I thought I could go over everything with you." She lowered the tray table at the end of the bed and brought a stool over to sit on. "Is that okay with you?"

Ziva nodded.

"Okay." She nodded, she could sense how shaken this woman was. "So, let me ask first – are you in any pain?"

Ziva nodded and indicated downward. "My abdomen. I think it is… cramping."

Pina nodded, "Can you rate that for me on a scale of one to ten?"

"Six."

"Okay, we can definitely get you something for that. How's the IV feeling?" She made a note in the chart.

"Painful."

"We can dilute that a bit too, to make you more comfortable."

"Okay," Ziva said. Pina watched her glance at her boyfriend who gave her a reassuring nod.

"So, I'm just going to give you a brief overview and then you can ask me any questions that either of you two have. Sound good?"

They nodded.

"Okay, last night, Miss David, you fainted at work after feeling … listless, lethargic, a little light headed, your face had significantly paled and you had a bit of a headache. So, you went home, took a nap, woke up, still not feeling too well, tried to eat, but couldn't and went back to bed. Shortly after you woke up the next time, you said you were sitting in a significant pool of blood. Do you remember any of this? It's what you told the doctors in the ER."

"Yes," she nodded, "I remember most of it now that you say it."

"Okay," Pina nodded, making a note in the chart. That was a good thing. "So, this is what basically happened, last summer while you were … prisoner…" she noticed the way man stiffened at this. Dr. Blair, she'd been told, had already spoken to him; he knew what was coming. "As a result of the sexual assaults you endured, you contracted a highly dangerous bacterial infection. The thing about this infection and what makes it so dangerous is that it lays dormant in someone until they have a change in hormone levels. Usually, they don't take the symptoms serious enough and then we get into a life-threatening situation. That's not the case here. You've been pumped with, so far, going on three doses of an antibiotic. So that's a good thing."

Pina paused and took a moment to study the patient and make sure that she was still following along. She'd been nodding through the whole speech. Dr. Malrani knew that this was a lot to take in, but she also knew that, if only for the boyfriend's sake, she had to get to the punch line, because he looked like he was about to come unglued.

"Miss David, I don't know if you were aware of this, but your change in hormones, it was caused by the early stages of a pregnancy. Unfortunately, due to the infection, that pregnancy was lost very, very early on."

Ziva David nodded, her face lacking any emotion at all. Pina wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but that wasn't it.

"That was the blood?" she asked.

"The beginnings of it, yes." Pina said, "I understand that this is a lot to take in, so if you want a bit for everything to settle, I can come back…"

* * *

He wasn't sure how he'd played this out in his mind, but he was certain he hadn't been expecting this - this awkward silence that had now settled between him and his partner.

Callie had woken him up only fifteen minutes ago and once he had realized that Ziva was awake, he had flown out of his chair and to her side. There were IVs in both of her hands so he'd taken to resting his elbow on the space of the mattress above her head and letting his hand rub her shoulder.

Tony hadn't been expecting an Oscar worthy moment between them when she woke up, but he _had_ been taken a back when she'd simply turned her head towards him, let it fall on his hand on her shoulder and said simply, "_I'm scared_." He'd used his other hand to caress her cheek. It hadn't been Oscar worthy, but it _had_ been heart wrenching and he'd known that the worst was yet to come.

He had told her that he was scared, too and that the doctor would explain everything and just like clockwork and perfect movie timing, one of Dr. Blair's residents, an Indian girl who, like Dr. Blair, looked more like your babysitter than your doctor, appeared at the ICU room door.

Dr. Pina Malrani had explained everything in simple and laymen's terms and Tony had found that the diagram in his head of what had happened over the previous twelve or so hours was just a little clearer.

He'd kept his hand on Ziva's shoulder the whole time and continued to run his thumb back and forth as he'd waited for the punch line.

And when she'd said it again – his world crashed a second time.

Dr. Malrani had just left – vowing to return once Tony and Ziva had a chance for everything to settle. Tony had to admit that despite the horror of the situation that he and Ziva had found themselves in, he was comforted by the fact that he _did_ feel she was being well taken care of.

Ziva was the one to break the silence, her voice even, her breathing steady, "Did you already know?" she asked. She wasn't looking at him.

"Yeah." He said. He felt like he was admitting to some sort of wrongdoing. "Earlier," He explained, "– I was in the waiting room – the other doctor came out."

"I don't even remember what happened." She breathed.

He sighed and took his hand off her shoulder. He sat down on the bed in front of her, taking her fingertips in his hands – careful not to disturb the IVs that were currently saving her life. "They didn't know why you were bleeding so much so they sedated you. It took them a little while to figure out what was going on."

"You stayed all night?" she asked, her voice catching in her throat.

He reached up and brushed his fingers across her face, "Of course I did. I wasn't going to leave you by yourself, _baby_. You didn't think I would, did you?"

She shook her head and cast her eyes down, a faint glistening evident in their corners. "No… I just … Tony, I was…

"It's alright," he said, "We're going to figure this out and we're going to be okay."

She nodded, wiping a few tears from her eyes, "I know, I know. I was so scared when we came in – there was so much going on – they were asking me so many questions and you could not stay and then when I woke up, I just . . . I did not know where I was." Her voice broke and the water spilled over from the corners of her eyes.

"Oh, _baby_," he said, wrapping his arms around her head and pulling her towards him, forgetting and possibly not caring for a moment that he had been trying not to hurt her, "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have fallen asleep. I'm so sorry, _baby_. I'm so sorry about all of this."

"No, no, that's not what I meant." She pulled back to look at him. "I am glad that you slept – I couldn't believe that you stayed, well, I mean, I could… I … Tony, we were pregnant."

"Yeah, crazy, right? You and I." His voice grew quieter and his eyes heavier. "And we don't even get the chance to meet the little one. Seems… cruel."

They sat there in silence for a little while. Ziva didn't know how to respond to Tony. Truth be told, she'd had a feeling that she was pregnant last week. She had panicked. She hadn't known what to do. _Yes_, she and Tony were serious and _yes_, she knew that he loved her, but at the same time, it was Tony that she was talking about. _Tony_. She hadn't known that he would want a baby…. She just hadn't known, but now – now she felt guilty for withholding the information from him. It was a part of him too.

"I'd had a feeling, Tony." She whispered.

"What do you mean?" he asked, his eyes widening.

"I was _late_ and I have… I've been … _irregular_ since last summer, but something," she looked up at him and saw the pain in his eyes, how his heart was hanging on her every word. "I just felt something."

He nodded at her, furiously wiping his eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was scared. I thought I was crazy. I didn't want you to freak out."

He nodded again. She _had_ point, there. He wasn't sure what he would have done had Ziva told him that she thought she was pregnant. He didn't think he was a runner but then again, he wasn't sure.

"I love you, Ziva."

She nodded, "I know you do." She wiped her eyes again.

"Promise me," he said, "Promise me that when it happens again, you'll just tell me and we'll figure it out."

"I promise." She said, despite the fact that his use of _when_ rather _if_ made her stomach drop to the ground, but she couldn't think about that right now because there was something else that was nagging at her. "Tony," she asked, "If I had listened to you…. could they have saved the baby?"

He shook his head and cupped his hands on her cheeks, his thumbs moving back in forth in just the slightest of comforting motions. He tilted his forehead against Ziva's before saying, "No, _baby_, they said we didn't do anything wrong. The infection would have killed you," his voice faltered at just the prospect of such a thing. "Sooner rather than later, these antibiotics would've needed to have been given to you and the rate and their potency…baby couldn't have survived."

She nodded against him and he held onto her as the realization that that awful summer was still hurting her life took over and Ziva was reduced to a few shards of broken glass.

* * *

_Thursday, September 23__rd_

Rachel sat at an empty table in the empty commons room in one of the base barracks. Her senses were ridiculously heightened. Every time the radiator clanged, every time a plane flew over the building, Rachel flinched, every nerve in her body jumped. She couldn't decide if she wanted him or her or them to just get it over with and show up or if she wanted to wait in limbo all day.

Rachel was confident that once they did show up and the plan was forced into action, she would know exactly what to do. Her training would kick in and she would have eyes on that girl in no time.

In the mean time, however, she waited. She had trackers on her – multiple trackers and there were a couple bugs on her, but she didn't have a microphone on her. Therefore, she had no way of communicating with any of her team. She knew that they were watching and listening and she knew that they would have her back when the time came.

Part of her just wished that she could have Ziva in her ear – telling her about a mission that she had done that was way more dangerous than this.

She wanted her to remind that she would be okay.

Suddenly her nostrils were filled with the sweet smell of chloroform. She been exposed to it while at The Farm and knew exactly what it smelled like. She was trained to be able to react before she lost consciousness and before she became a victim. In that instance, all of her training kicked in. She abandoned the thought of letting them take her quietly and jabbed the back of her elbow into the attacker's chest, but the cloth was already over her nose and her mouth. She jerked her neck from side to side. She had to free herself. She wasn't going to be able to stay awake . . . much longer. She . . . had to. She didn't . . . like the idea of being so . . . vulnerable. She . . . needed . . . to . . . be . . . her –

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for reading. Please let me know what you thought. **

**Cara**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I fixed the chapter titles for the last two. Sorry about that.**

* * *

**Chapter**** Five**

_Thursday, September 23__rd_

She had never actually thought about what it would be like to see Rachel in or going into a compromising situation.

Sure, she knew that she could handle herself; she knew that she had some of the best training in the world and that she had more common sense than half of Mossad and the CIA combined – well, perhaps that was a bit of an extreme, but, nonetheless, _intellectually_, Ziva knew that Rachel would be fine. On the other hand, _emotionally_, something inside of her chest got all tight and worried as she thought of all the things that could go wrong. It didn't matter that Rachel knew what she was doing – there were countless external factors that could cause this to go wrong – very wrong.

Ziva squared her shoulders and crossed her arms across her chest as she watched two masked attackers come up at Rachel from behind.

She hated chloroform.

She had used it to her advantage at Mossad on a number of occasions. Yeah, it definitely worked and fast – and that's why she hated it. There was something wrong about watching it used on someone you loved. Something very, very wrong.

"Alright people, keep an eye on her." Gibbs growled. "We will not lose her for a second." He slammed his fist down on the table.

She pushed herself out of her trance and sat down at one of the laptops. Gibbs didn't have to tell _her_ that they wouldn't lose Rachel. It simply wasn't an option. Not in Ziva's head.

The team watched through base security cameras as Rachel was carried from her chair in the commons through the doorway and out into the hallway. As they rounded the next corner, however, the screen cut and suddenly there was no one to be seen in the hallway. Ziva swore that for a second, she thought that she was going to faint.

"Find her!" Gibbs barked, pacing behind his team and effectively snapping Ziva back into a place where she could legitimately function and think clearly.

"They must have someone in base security," Tony said.

"Get over there and figure out who it is."

Tony hopped out of his chair, grabbing his sig and securing it to his hip. He sprinted out of the room but not before laying a hand on Ziva's shoulder and giving it a quick squeeze.

And then he was gone.

* * *

_Mid-Morning, Saturday, October 9__th_

Rachel hung up her phone after Ziva's cell phone went to voicemail for the third time and decided that her friend must actually be sleeping in – for once. Ziva certainly needed to after her little fainting incident at the office yesterday. She set her phone down on the table and started slipping on her running shoes. It was a beautifully crisp fall morning in the District of Columbia and she was ready for a much-needed long run.

She was crossed her legs over one another and began mapping her route. First, she would head towards the National Mall. Hopefully it was still early enough that it wouldn't be congested with camera totting tourists. And then, she would run around the tidal basin, enjoying the shade provided by the trees whose leaves were just beginning to change colors. She would then work –

Her vibrating phone snapped Rachel out of her idyllic route planning.

Of course Ziva couldn't sleep past eleven; that would just be too much for her. She reached over and flipped the phone open, surprised when it was Tony's name on the caller I.D. instead of Ziva's.

"Hello?"

"_Rach_," Tony exhaled, seemingly relieved that she had answered.

"Yeah? What's up, Tony? Everything okay?" His voice pushed her towards her natural panic mode – ever since Jacob had died, she'd had a predisposition to panicking.

"Umm…_no_. Any chance you can come to Bethesda? Ziva's sick and we're in need of some… moral support." He started rambling, "I'm kind of starting to flounder, here, Rach and I didn't want to bother you last night," he sighed, "but I'm kind of wishing I had because …"

"I'm coming, Tony," Her heart was racing now and she was sure that the temperature in her apartment had risen at least ten degrees.

"Okay. Okay, good . . . thanks, Rachel . . . alright, okay."

She grabbed her other shoe off the ground and her keys off of the counter and flew out the door. She hopped down the stairs, balancing her car keys in her mouth and her phone on her shoulder as she tried to slip her sneaker on. "What do you mean, Ziva's sick?" she asked.

By the time Tony finished his retelling of the last fourteen hours, Rachel was pulling into the visitor lot and hopping out of her car.

She was trying to fully process all of the information before she saw them. She didn't want to look like a deer in headlights or say something that alluded to the fact that she didn't fully know what happened.

Ziva was her best friend and Tony had become a close runner-up. He was clearly distraught and she could only imagine what was going on in Ziva's head. This was more than losing a pregnancy – this was Saleem and her father coming back and hurting her just when she thought she was safe and _that_ could do more psychological damage than she suspected either one of them wanted to deal with.

Rachel found Tony in the hallway, just outside the doors that led to the ICU. He was leaning against the wall, his arms folded protectively across his chest. His hand gripped his phone and his head faced the tiled floor. His eyes were squeezed shut.

"Hey," she said, sidling up next to him.

He pulled his eyes from the floor and looked at her, a sad laugh escaping his mouth, "How many laws did you break getting here?"

"_You do what you have to for family_," she said, a small smile threatening to invade her face. That was her favorite rule.

He nodded and then inhaled sharply. "She asked me to call you. She's freaked." He laughed again. "We both are." He added. "You know, last year, when you and McGee like broke into the apartment and took her out, I didn't think things could get _any_ worse. I mean, how could they, right?" Tony looked Rachel square in the eyes, "I was wrong." He shrugged.

She placed a comforting hand on his arm. "She's going to be fine though – you both are."

"Yeah." He thought about the statement for a moment, dancing it around in his head. "Still sucks, though." He turned towards her. "We were having a _kid_."

"Is that more unbelievable than the fact that you are no longer?" she asked, careful to pick the most gentle words she could.

"I think that needs to sink in before I can grieve the loss." He rubbed his forehead. "I've always been afraid of kids, especially the idea of having kids of my own. I used to be pretty much a jackass, you know, so I was always afraid that one would come out of the woodwork – one of those one night stands who come back to haunt me. I never really thought about what it would feel like to want a baby and…and now I do."

She nodded and Rachel sensed that this was the first time all day that Tony had gotten to just think about how all of this affected him. So, she just stood next to him for a while as he took a moment to stop thinking about Ziva and he and Ziva and just thought about Tony.

"You didn't call anyone else, did you?" he asked, a look of panic suddenly on his face.

"No," she shook her head, pulling out her phone, "Did you want me to call Gibbs and McGee or Abby?"

"No, actually…I don't." He spoke slowly, unsure of his words. "I don't know…. For some reason this just feels too…personal, like I need a bit longer for it to just be us."

"I can come back…" Rachel offered.

"No, no, no. I meant _you_ us." He reached over and slapped the button that opened the automatic doors to the ICU. "Come on, she's been alone too long."

* * *

Ziva had suggested Tony call Rachel for a variety of reasons, but chiefly among them was that she needed some time alone. Not _alone_, alone. She wasn't sure she could handle _that_, but she did know that she needed some time separate from Tony – time to figure out what all of this meant to her.

She hadn't cried when he'd left the room. She thought she might, but she didn't. She just stared at the wall in front of her.

Ziva wasn't quite sure what she was feeling.

_So_, she had been pregnant… She and Tony had been _pregnant_, but they _weren't_ any longer.

More collateral damage that her father was culpable for? Or was this one finally something she could blame herself for? _She'd_ fallen for Michael. _She'd _evaded Gibbs and Tony and all of NCIS. _She'd_ blamed Tony for the death of the man she thought she was in love with.

At the time, it had made sense – in some twisted way. She'd known all along that something had been wrong with her and Michael, but she had never been willing to admit that to herself because that meant that she wasn't closer to normalcy or stability or permanence.

So maybe this pain – this emptiness that she felt in the center of her chest – maybe that was _her_ fault, _not_ her father's and _not_ Saleem's.

And then there was Tony. She knew that he was hurting too. She'd seen that look in his eyes when she had said that she had had a feeling. He'd been crushed. You don't know what you have until its gone. Maybe he _had_ wanted this. Maybe he hadn't known then, but she knew that now, now he was surely feeling a loss.

And that was why she'd needed to be alone. Not only was she fully responsible for her own pain, but she was also to blame for what he was feeling and she just couldn't bear to look at those broken eyes anymore.

"Hey," Tony said, coming into the room. "You have a visitor."

Rachel stepped in behind him and gave a characteristic wave. "I pulled a you getting here," she said, pulling the other chair over to the side of the bed.

"You are a dangerous driver all on your own," Ziva responded, working carefully to keep her voice light and even.

"Sure," Rachel responded sarcastically. She'd caught the way that Ziva's voice had sounded all coiled up inside her throat and so, she scooted her chair closer to the bed, patted Ziva's leg and let her elbows rest on the mattress.

Tony caught the heavy look that floated between the two women and decided that that was probably his cue to leave. "Umm… I'm going to go get something to eat, Ziva." He leaned over and kissed her forehead. "Want anything?"

She shook her head and he nodded and slowly and apprehensively made his way out of the room.

Rachel let her eyes flicker to the door and then back to Ziva. "He didn't waste too much time," she said.

Ziva tried to manage a laugh but it came out more in the form of a choked sob. The noise caused Rachel to move even closer and grab her friend's hand, before pulling her into a hug.

"I'm so sorry, Ziva." She said before letting her go. "I can't imagine how much this hurts."

Ziva nodded as a fresh set of tears made their way down her cheeks. "I didn't even know that I _wanted_ kids."

Rachel nodded but her mind flickered back to their conversation in that Canadian mall. Maybe Ziva had blocked it out – a desire to spare herself from the pain.

"I hurt him so much, Rachel."

"No you didn't. He's not mad at you." Rachel insisted. It physically hurt her to see Ziva this way.

"He should be." Ziva protested. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I mean, I knew. Or, at least, I knew something was different and I did not tell him. And the fact that the baby's gone – that is my fault too."

"You're being too hard on yourself."

"I don't think he is being hard enough."

"Stop, Ziva, _seriously_. He loves you and he blames himself for everything that's gone on." Rachel paused and gathered the courage to continue with what she believed needed to be said, "Frankly, I think you're both to blame, but that's never really been important. What's always been important is that there is this incredible thing between you two that nothing has been able to take away. It's both your fault, but that's okay."

Ziva looked at Rachel for a moment. Rachel would be the only person around who had the guts to tell her what she actually thought. It was always refreshing.

"Not in that you deserved all of this shit because you didn't – you don't." Rachel didn't want Ziva to allow that comment to feed all of her self-loathing thoughts. She knew they still existed. "I don't want you to take it that way. It's just, you two only recently started communicating your feelings. Some things still aren't easy. They don't always come naturally."

"I love him so much," Ziva said, tears still sneaking out of the sides of her eyes.

"I know," Rachel nodded. "He knows, too."

"This is just a lot to take in. Confirmation of my suspicion and then . . . "

"I understand – well, I can imagine."

"He made me promise to tell him next time I had any suspicions like that and, Rachel, I just… sometimes his commitment is … _striking_."

"You're still just a little scared of getting hurt."

* * *

_Thursday, September 23__rd_

There were five cadets sitting in the ten by ten security office and they all had the fear of God on their faces when Tony walked in. And if any of them had anything to do with the compromising situation his Rachel was now in, they certainly had a reason to look so scared.

He pulled his badge out of his pocket and flashed it at the cadets. "Special Agent DiNozzo, NCIS."

The redhead in the back corner piped up. "Uh. What can we help you with, sir?" He stood.

"You aware that one of your cameras seems to be malfunctioning?" Tony asked raising a brow at them.

"That's not possible, sir, " the cadet responded, "As you can see," he pointed to the array of computer screens that lined the room, "they're all up and working perfectly fine."

"Funny," Tony said, a sardonic smile coming across his face, he shook his head, "That's not possible, you see, I just lost footage of barrack eight so, clearly, there's something wrong."

"I'm not sure what that could be."

Tony took a step forward and tried to get a feel on the kid. Private Benjamin. He couldn't decide if he was lying or just honestly had no idea. "I'm going to need the surveillance footage from the room. This room."

The young and probably ridiculously naïve Private Benjamin thought about Tony's request for a moment, "We're not supposed to give those out."

"Trust me," Tony laughed, "You can give them to me."

A husky, bearded Latino chose now to stand and make his way over to Tony. "Major Guerra," he said, extending his hand.

"Are you the officer in charge, Major?" Tony asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Any reason you chose to sit back and hang Private Benjamin, there, out to dry?" The major stood silently and so Tony continued, "You could have interrupted earlier."

"I thought it was a good learning experience for him, sir. It was a misjudgment." The Major apologized.

"Yeah, whatever," Tony rolled his eyes, "Just…let's get on with the tapes." He realized that he might possibly be being a little harsh on the men in the security office. They had a lame job, watching monitors all day, looking for anything, anything at all that seemed out of place, but then, again, this concerned Rachel's safety. There was Megan Bradley, too, but over the past nine months, he'd grown so protective of Ziva's non-biological sister. Some kind of switch in him had switched and he would protect that girl.

"We're not supposed to release security footage unless we know the purpose, sir."

"Classified," Tony responded. "Above _all_ of your pay grades."

Another previously silent young recruit stood up from his desk and joined Tony and Guerra. "Kimbal," he introduced himself.

Tony nodded.

"This about that missing Navy brat?" he crossed his arms over his chest and squared his feet.

"It may be," Tony responded, eyes still locked on Guerra – being the man in charge, Tony expected him to dismiss Kimbal so that they could get on to business.

Kimbal's eyes flashed to Guerra and then nodded before turning back to his post and sitting down.

"I usually deal with Agent Simmons when NCIS is involved, he's the NCIS agent for this side of base."

"Like I said, this is classified and above his pay grade also." Tony repeated.

Guerra nodded and turned back to his desk. He pulled the videotapes up from the last few days and began to download them onto a flash drive. A moment later, he laid the drive in Tony's palm. "I'd like to speak with Simmons as soon as possible."

"I'll try to arrange that, but let me remind you, we're in the middle of a search for a missing teenage girl. You can understand why your courtesy conversation will take a back burner." Tony shook his head, almost disgusted by the Major and left the office, almost sprinting back to his team.

* * *

**Please let me know what you thought ... and maybe favorite line or moment?**

Thanks as always, Cara.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Sorry for such a delay. Please let me know what you think.**

**Cara**

* * *

**Chapter Five**

_Late Afternoon, Thursday, September 23__rd_

It took Abby less than an hour to go through all the video footage. Her only complaint was that she hated working out of her lab and without her music. For Rachel, though, she would do anything. Gibbs candidly reminded her that there was that innocent girl they were looking for too.

She peered at him for a moment, waved her hand and then turned back to the makeshift lab that had been set up.

After going through the clips several times, Abby discovered the exact time and place where the tapes had been edited. It seemed that the people who were taking both Rachel and Megan were able to remotely disable the live feed and play a recording.

Abby determined that the recording was from September 20th, just a day before Megan went missing. This realization brought the team back to the security office to look for evidence of a break-in or foul play, but they found nothing – leading to a general consensus that the problem was rooted in one of the men who worked in the office. It took less than an hour to get Major Guerra into an interrogation room rarely used by the Agents stationed at Oceana. There wasn't a mark on the wall or a scratch on the floor.

Gibbs sat down in front of the man and slapped a folder down on the table. Guerra didn't look visibly shaken, but Gibbs knew that he could easily change that. This man had a lot to lose – a wife, two young kids, a sister in college on state aide and a mother who was in the country illegally. There was really no way that Gibbs could or would, for that matter, get her deported, but still, Leroy Jethro Gibbs had some artillery that he planned on using.

"So, you want to tell me how your office computers were hacked?" Gibbs asked.

Guerra shook his head, "Sir, I don't know what you're talking about. I gave your guy all the records I had. There's been nothing unusual for weeks."

"_Nothing_, Major?" Gibbs questioned. "Do you want to be the one to tell a missing teenage girl's parents that their daughter's disappearance is nothing? Or should I do that?"

"That's no what I meant. I have a daughter, you know."

"I know." He responded flatly.

"I meant the office. I don't know how someone could have gotten a hold of the tapes – you see, if we have actual tapes, which we really don't anymore, they're locked up and the recordings, they're password locked." He stared at Gibbs not bothered by his silence or shaken by his questions.

Gibbs sighed, beginning to think that the Major didn't have anything to do with the whole situation. "Fine," he said, "Tell me about September 20th."

"Fairly regular day," Guerra said after taking a moment to think. "I stepped out with some of the men for a bit, finished some training."

"Who did that leave in the office?"

"Kimbal and Benjamin." The man answered automatically and then paused before clarifying, "But Kimbal's a good kid and Benjamin, Todd Benjamin, he's way too green to do anything like that."

Gibbs nodded, a knowing smirk coming across his face. He picked up the folder, now having what he needed from Major Joaquin Guerra and headed towards the door. "Guerra," He paused before exciting, "Never too green."

* * *

_Midday, Saturday, October 9__th_

Tony made his way back to Ziva's room after nearly an two hours spent in the hospital cafeteria. He'd thought about calling Gibbs a couple of times, but had ultimately never dialed the numbers. He just couldn't bring himself to. The same phrase was just repeating itself in his head. _This is too close. Too close_. He wasn't ready for anyone else to know – he barely knew himself.

The two women were watching TV when he stepped back inside the room. Both looked spent but both looked up and smiled when he walked in. He was sure that that was a good sign.

"Hey," he said.

Ziva looked over at him and smiled, "We were worried that you had been seduced by some attractive nurse."

He gave her the chuckle that she'd clearly been looking for and played along, "Couldn't find any – they were all busy." He came over and sat down in the other chair, scooting it just a little closer to the side of the bed.

"That is a shame," she said. She moved her hand from its resting place in her lap to the edge of the bed.

He looked at it for a second and then reached over and picked it up, letting his thumb brush over her fingers. _Yeah, he was still here – he wasn't going anywhere_. She looked at him and he tried to give her a reassuring nod.

"I'm gonna' take off," Rachel said, getting up. Her work here was done – that was evident. She grabbed her bag off the windowsill and slung it on her shoulder.

"Don't leave on my account," Tony said.

"You wish," Rachel replied. "Call me, though, if you guys need anything. You know, anything at all."

"Thanks, Rach." Ziva said.

"Of course." Rachel smiled and turned towards the door. She paused. "Uh… Tony, those calls –"

"Don't make them," he cut her off. "I will, _eventually_."

She nodded.

"I'll… uh… cover for you guys if need be," she offered.

"Thanks."

She nodded and then walked out of the room, leaving Tony and Ziva alone. They sat in silence for a few moments. They both knew that eventually someone would have to flinch and say the first word, but neither of them were quite ready to make the sacrifice and take the leap. So, they sat in companionable silence – it was something they were actually quite good at.

Every so often Tony would move his thumb back and forth – he didn't want her to think that she was losing him through this. She wasn't.

"Did you…" Ziva jumped first, but stumbled over her words, "Were you able to … clear your head?" she asked.

"Were you?" he countered. He twisted his body towards her just a bit.

"I think so… as long as you think so." She deferred back to him.

"Ziva, I know so." The look in his eyes conveyed his sincerity.

"I am… sorry about how you found out," She shook her head, breaking eye contact with him. "I should have –"

"Ziva, we went through this, its okay." He brushed a hand across her cheek and down her hair.

"Tony, I am sorry about all of this. If I hadn't –"

"Ziva, come on," He sighed, exasperated. "_Baby_, it's not your fault. I don't know how to get that through to you… none of this – _any_ of it, is your fault."

She nodded, eyes welling.

He kissed her forehead. "I love you. You and me," he said, "We're partners. Don't ever forget that, but I'm sorry too. I'm sorry this has happened and I'm sorry that you're hurting and that I can't fix it."

"This is hurting you, too." She said. "You do not have to try to hide it."

He sighed and pushed himself up from his chair, sitting down on the narrow hospital bed next to her. "Yeah, yeah I am."

Sometime later that day, but probably closer to sometime that evening, there was a knock on the door before the entrance of Dr. Samantha Blair. Dressed in periwinkle scrubs with her hair tied up in a messy bun, she looked far less put together than she had when Tony had last seen her, only adding to his unconscious belief that she _couldn't_ be a doctor. She slid the door shut behind her and Tony got up from his chair, reaching out to shake her hand.

"Ziva, this is Dr. Blair," he said, turning back to his partner.

"Hi, Ziva, I don't know if you remember me, but I saw you when you came in last night. I was the OBGYN in the Emergency Room. "

"Yes, I do." She responded. Tony sat back down in his chair and pulled Ziva's hand from her lap.

She did remember the young doctor. She had come into the room just before they'd put her under. The epitome of tranquility, Ziva had watched as she'd discretely taken control of the room from the general doctor. She'd come up to Ziva's head, assured her that everything was going to be fine and told her that they were going to give her something to help her relax. And that was the last thing that Ziva remembered.

"Well, you're certainly looking better." Dr. Blair commented. She grabbed the swiveling stool and sat down at the tray table at the foot of the bed. "How are you feeling? Any pain? Light-headedness? Nausea?" She opened the file and then expectantly looked up at Ziva.

"I'm a little nauseas and light-headed at times, but other than that the IV's are just quite painful."  
"Yeah," She nodded, "I'm sorry about those, but you just have one last dose of antibiotic so hopefully we'll be able to take them out soon." She wrote some notes in her file and then looked up. "So, I know that Dr. Malrani explained everything to you guys – I'm really sorry, Ziva, that I wasn't here when you woke up. I was in emergency surgery." She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Anyway, I'm sure she and Callie did a wonderful job, but do either of you have any questions for me or want to go over anything? I know that it's a lot to take in."

Ziva looked at Tony for a moment and then back down at the bed in front of her.

Yes, of course she had questions. She had many questions. She just didn't know what they were or whether now was the right time to ask them. Her mind was racing and Ziva didn't know how to turn it off or even slow it down just a little.

She looked back at Tony, only to find his eyes already on her.

"Do you want me to… go for a walk?" he offered. She looked uncomfortable and he wondered if his presence was the cause. He hoped it wasn't. He hoped that she trusted him enough and was comfortable enough around him. He thought she was. But if she wasn't, he didn't want to be the cause of any more discomfort.

She shook her head, her eyes going wide with fear. "No, please stay." She said quickly. That wasn't it at all. She didn't think that she could sit through this without him. He was holding her up.

He nodded, seemingly understanding her frantic thought process, "Okay - I'm here." He let go of her hand, moved is chair closer and threw his arm around her waist.

She took a deep breath and prepared to ask the one question that had been bothering her all day – ever since he'd made her make that promise about… _next_ time. "I guess that my only question," she paused and swallowed and Dr. Blair nodded, encouraging her on, "... I don't know how -" she looked at Tony, unable or unwilling to complete her sentence.

Tony took a risk, not knowing whether _his_ burning question was the same as _her_ burning question. He thought that it might be so he took the jump. "I think we're just curious about how this may effect the future?" He looked at her and she nodded her head. So that _was_ the question she'd had in her head.

"Of course," Samantha nodded – she was young and they were in love, Samantha had figured that this question would come up – she'd prepared for it. "Well, Ziva you have a lot of things going in your favor – you're young and active and healthy and that all contributes. I plan on doing a full examination tomorrow, but from what I saw yesterday, there wasn't too much physical damage. Of course we can also run some tests and determine, more chemically, how the infection and antibiotics have affected you. That said, I don't think it will adversely affected your chance at having children in the future. It may not happen immediately, but I think it will most definitely happen."

They nodded and Tony gently tightened his hold on her. She had things going for her. He liked the way that sounded.

"Does that answer your question?" Samantha asked. She narrowed her eyes, trying to discern the answer from the two stoic people in front of her. She supposed poker faces were part of their job description – though the boyfriend, Tony, certainly hadn't had his on the night before.

"Yes, I think so," Ziva said.

"Okay. Great," Dr. Blair said, "Anything else?"

"When will I be able to go home?" Ziva asked.

Dr. Blair smiled. She liked this question – it always meant that the patient was in good spirits. "As long as you keep responding positively to the antibiotics tonight and everything is clear - I would say tomorrow evening is a definite possibility," She paused, "You will be weak for a couple of days, though, so I would keep that in mind. You'll need a bit of help."

Dr. Blair's eyes flickered to Tony and he nodded, letting her know that, yes, he was in fact able to take on the responsibility. Never in _any_ span of time would he want _anyone_ else doing it. _Well_… he _supposed_, in a _dire_ situation, he could _deal_ with Rachel substituting, but he'd much rather take care of her himself.

* * *

_Sunset, Thursday, September 23__rd_

Rachel awoke dazed and confused. She had a killer headache, worse than any hangover she'd ever experienced in college and, with her past, that said something. Seated on a wood floor, almost every bone in her body was screaming.

It took her a moment to remember how she'd gotten here. There was the case…there was the missing girl…Oceana. She'd gone on a date last week with one of her old friends from Georgetown. That hadn't ended badly, had it?

She rubbed her forehead and dared to open her eyes.

She was in a shed. One hand cuffed to the wall. There was late daylight filtering through a dusty window in the corner. She scanned the room, looking for a way to break herself free. It was then that her eyes landed on those of a frightened teenage girl.

"Megan Bradley," Rachel breathed. It all came back to her in full. The talk with Ziva, going undercover, waiting in the common rooms, the smell of cloro – for a moment she swore she might pass out again.

"How do you know my name?" the girl spoke before Rachel had a chance to lose consciousness.

Rachel squeezed her eye shut for a moment and tried to pull herself together. She could feel the blood rushing from her brain and for a second she wished that she hadn't said yes to Ziva. She didn't have to be here right now. Rachel took a ragged deep breath and shoved all thoughts except the task at hand from her brain. "I'm a cop," she finally said, "A fed."

"I don't understand," Megan responded, her voice cracked and then she dared to continue on "If you're a fed,"

"I'm supposed to be here," Rachel finished. "I'm… we're going to figure this out." The reassuring comment wasn't just for Megan.

Megan nodded in understanding although the look in her eyes conveyed anything but. She was terrified – there was no way that she could hide that from Rachel and, to be honest, Rachel was scared too.

She took another deep breath and tried to clear her head. Right now wasn't the time to be scared.

She shook the hand cuffed to the pole behind and tried to dislodge herself. Though all the muscles and bones in her body hurt, she shook her arm with all the force that she had.

The cuff simply clanged against the pole. Nothing.

She sighed. They were trapped. There was nothing that she could do. They were trapped.

Rachel shifted on the floor, trying to get off her screaming tailbone. She leaned her upper body against the side of the wall, trying to take the pressure off. She at least didn't want to be in so much pain.

From the other end of the room, Megan broke and began to cry, sobs overtaking her body. "You _have_ to get me out of here," she said, "He said he'd kill me whether he got the money or not."

_Money_? So this was about _money_? Rachel was sure that it was never just about _money_. Megan's sobs filled the shed and the newest member of team Gibbs tried to come up with something reassuring to say.

She was about to explain to the girl that they had the best team – the best people in the world looking for them, when something emerged from her clouded memory.

McGee had wanted to put all the locating devices available to them on her, but Abby had insisted they place just one. She didn't want to make it obvious that Rachel was a plant. Carefully hidden in the back belt loop of her pants was a very small square tracking device. It was the newest of its kind, discreetly equipped with a panic button. Abby had just received it in the mail – a prototype from one of her friends at, ironically enough, the Agency. She had promised McGee that she'd tested it and that it worked _perfectly_. Rachel pressed herself back against the wall as much as she could. She winced as she held herself there for a few second.

And then there was the quietest _beep_.

"Megan," she turned toward the teenage girl who had done her best to curl herself into the fetal position, "It's only a matter of time, I promise."

The girl nodded.

"We're in this together."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

_Dusk, Thursday, September 23__rd_

Partially against his better judgment and partially to make sure that she would still be able to be professional, Gibbs brought Ziva along to look into the other members of the surveillance team.

She was quiet and determined as they quickly marched across the base and he figured that she knew he was testing her. Ziva always knew, but he was okay with that.

It turned out to be a good thing that Gibbs brought Ziva along because when they entered the surveillance building they were greeted by the sight of Private Elliot Benjamin and Lieutenant Justin Kimbal destroying the only leads that Team Gibbs currently had.

Benjamin stood at the shredder, feeding the few hard copies of tape into their demise and Kimbal was behind him, anxiously wiping clean of all the hard-drives in the office.

At the sound of Gibbs' "Federal Agents, put your hands up!" both men sprinted through the back door.

The ensuing chase lasted less than two minutes. Once out the back door, Elliot Benjamin tripped over a highly visible tree root. Gibbs wasn't quite sure how the Private had made it through basic training and certainly didn't consider him a threat – he figured that with just a hint of Leroy Jethro intimidation the kid could be cajoled into giving up everything on his own – but he cuffed him and announced his rights, nonetheless.

Ziva, on the other hand, got her first cardio workout in days. A little bit older, but certainly more physically fit, Justin Kimbal weaved his way through innocent passersby, trying his best to knock Ziva off his course. That, of course, is hardly possible on a day when Ziva barely cares about a case or suspect, let alone when her practical flesh and blood was is life-threatening danger.

She caught up to him just as he broke for the grassy park and tackled him to the ground with a loud thump. Yes, that would in fact leave a nasty bruise that Tony would take to caressing, but the yellowing of her skin would barely be called collateral damage if Rachel were in sight again.

She yanked the man off of the ground, muttering a few languages worth of curses under her breath and placed the metal cuffs tightly around his wrists.

"You don't understand," Kimbal huffed, "You guys got it all wrong."

"Really?" She was irritated with him to begin with and if he though she was going to believe his professions of innocence, Justin Kimbal had another thing coming for him.

"Yeah." He continued, "Your involvement is screwing things up. I was doing it. I was going to get Meg back."

She steered him in the direction of Gibbs, one hand tight holding the cuffs, the other gripping his neck. "You know Megan?" she asked.

"She's my niece." He said. "I was going to drop the money. They said I could have her back tonight…I just had to make the drop and destroy the evidence of the other girl – said they hadn't found her family to bargain with yet."

Ziva was about to press Kimbal for more information when her phone rang. She removed the hand from his neck and pulled the phone out of her pocket and after wedging it between her shoulder and her neck, she gripped Kimbal again and answered the phone.

"David," she said.

"Ziva!" She could distinctly identify the two voices as among her favorite in the world and the excitement in McGee and Abby's voices led her to believe that this wasn't a conversation for her to fear.

"What –"

"We have a fix on Rachel's location, " Abby screamed before Ziva could even get her question out. "She was able to hit the panic button. McGee is triangulating."

"Are you on your way back with Gibbs?" McGee cut in, "I'll have her a sec – should Tony and I go?"

"We will be right there," she said, pushing against the back of Justin Kimbal, making him walk faster.

* * *

_Close to Midnight, Saturday, October 9__th_

Tony returned to the hospital late that night. He had gone home around nine, needing to shower and get some clothes for himself and Ziva. Dr. Blair had made it clear that going home tomorrow was a definite possibility and he planned on being fully prepared for such a thing.

He'd been reluctant to leave Ziva alone. It just didn't seem right. She was all coiled up inside, thinking that this was her fault and that she had really messed things up for them – none of which were true. He'd planned on calling Rachel in the morning and asking her to come sit with Ziva for a bit, but Callie had returned for her nightly shift. She'd sat down and started talking with Ziva and soon enough both women were insisting that he go home and shower and bring back some real clothes for Ziva.

So that's what he'd done.

It was strange walking back into the apartment. They'd left in such a whirlwind. He hadn't even taken the sheets off the bed.

He did that and he cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom because they looked like a crime scene too.

He wouldn't admit if asked, but he cried for the first time in twenty-four hours while in the shower. He mourned his baby and the seemingly uninterrupted life that he and Ziva had been living for the past few months.

And then he pulled himself together and turned the shower off. They were going to be fine – life wasn't easy and there was no reason for theirs to be any exception. He loved Ziva more than anything else in the world and he knew that she loved him and that, above all else, meant that they would just push on. It was their only option.

It was close to midnight by the time he made it back to the hospital. He wasn't sure how he got back upstairs, but flashing his badge couldn't have hurt. Tony quickened his pace when he saw Callie sitting at her computer rather than inside the room with Ziva.

She must have heard his footsteps because she swiveled in her chair and put her hand up, "Relax," she said, "She's sleeping."

He exhaled and then realized that Ziva could probably fake sleep better than anyone around. "I doubt it," he deadpanned.

She beckoned him closer, "Come see for yourself. I have two sources to prove it."

He walked over and stood behind her. She pointed to the glass window that separated them from Ziva's room. She was on her back, her head titled slightly to her neck and her eyes closed. He shook his head. "She never sleeps on her back."

"Look at the stats," Callie prompted.

Tony's eyes flickered to Callie's computer screen. Ziva's oxygen saturation and her heart rate were extremely stable and consistent, leading one to believe that she was in fact, asleep.

He nodded and mumbled a quick _thank you_ before turning back and easing the sliding door open. He tiptoed into the room and shrugged his bag off, leaving it by the shaded window.

He fought the urge to touch his sleeping partner, realizing the she desperately needed the rest to recover. Instead, he sat down in the chair that he now called his own and simply watched her chest rise and fall. Hopefully, he could get some rest of his own.

He was half asleep when the corner of his eye caught Callie coming in. She whispered, "last one," as she pushed a round of antibiotics into each of Ziva's IVs. The notion that he and Ziva could be curled together in bed this time to tomorrow was enough to push Tony over the edge and into unconsciousness.

* * *

_Six-Ten in the Evening, Thursday, September 23__rd_

Tony let Ziva drive the six point three miles from Oceana to the location transmitted from the device in Rachel's waist. He'd figured that driving was good for her. It gave Ziva an ounce of control in a situation that she felt absolutely powerless in. Plus, it saved him for her incessant comments that he was driving too slowly. Really, it was a win, win situation. They got to Rachel faster, Ziva got some piece of mind and Tony wasn't nagged.

"There are too many cars on the road," she growled, swerving between a pickup truck and a mini van.

"You're doing great," Tony said, "We're almost there."

She shot him a nervous look before focusing back on the road, "This will lessen, right?" she asked. "I mean, we get in dangerous situations all the time. I will relax, yes?"

He thought for a moment and then turned towards her, squinting his eyes. "Remember that time we got beat up by military guards when Vance and SecNav played us to out Lee?"

"How could I forget that?" She mused. "I was sure one of us was going to die."

"Well, they had me watching the surveillance tapes while Davenport was talking to you and you didn't know if I was okay."

"I was panicking."

"So it doesn't go away and I'm pretty sure you feel a little less protective of me than you do of Rachel…"

"It is nothing against you – I just… she –"

"I know," he said, "That's not what I was getting at it. I'm saying it probably will only dull to a certain point." He reached over and cupped his hand around her neck, brushing his thumb back and forth. "I can't lie and say that I'm not more protective of you now than I was before…. before we were different and before I thought you were gone…" he trailed off and then pulled himself back, now wasn't the time to go back down that road. "Sorry," he muttered, "What I am saying is…its scary and it sucks, but you deal because that's what we signed up for."

She nodded, biting her lip, "I do not know what would happen if I lost either of you."

"We'll get her," he promised and just as she was nodding, trying hard to believe the words that so earnestly poured from his mouth, the GPS tracking lead them down a small dirt road to unassuming brick house.

* * *

**A/N: strategically short chapter. Please let me know your thoughts. **

**:) Cara**


	8. Chapter 8

**Sorry for such a hiatus. College got a bit in the way. Hope you'll stay with me. **

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

_Six-Fifteen in the Evening, Thursday, September 23__rd_

The charger driven by Gibbs with McGee in the passenger seat pulled in behind Tony and Ziva and, behind them came two more cars filled with Oceana NCIS agents and military police for back up. They immediately began to set up a perimeter.

Not only seasoned in _any_ rescue operation, but also experienced in pulling out one of their very own, Tim, Gibbs, Tony, and Ziva slipped on bullet proof vests and loaded their guns before the last of their backup had even had the chance to get out of their respective cars. Tony and Ziva took the back door with McGee and Gibbs heading up the front stairs. They each knocked once, again announcing themselves before Ziva kicked down the back door and McGee, the front.

Instantly, McGee and Gibbs were confronted by two armed assailants moving down the inside stairs. Shots fired from both sides as the suspects moved backwards inside the house. McGee was able to get the taller, better shooter, in the shoulder and from then on it was difficult for the man to even lift the gun to shoot, let alone shoot straight at Gibbs and McGee.

The smaller man was clearly less experienced, and rather than stay put and fire shots at Gibbs and McGee, he turned and ran, only to be confronted by the gun wielding dynamic duo of Tony and Ziva – entering through the rear kitchen.

With less than three more shots fired, both assailants were taken down and cuffed. As McGee and Tony cuffed the men and read them their Miranda rights, Gibbs and Ziva scoured the house for any signs of Rachel or Megan Bradley.

They raced up the stairs and tore threw empty bedrooms and bathrooms, frantically yelling _clear_ each time they determined the emptiness of a room.

Ziva couldn't help but feel a pit developing in her stomach. What if Rachel had been found sometime between hitting the panic button and their arrival at the scene? It had been almost ten minutes. Anything could have happened.

She exchanged a frantic look with Gibbs as they both realized that neither their newest teammate, nor their missing teenager were inside the rundown looking farmhouse.

Downstairs, Tony and McGee had handed their suspects over to the local NCIS agents and military police.

"They are not here," Ziva called as she trotted down the stairs, Gibbs following close on her heels.

"McGee," he snapped, "I thought you said that GPS thingy had a small radius."

"It does," McGee responded, looking genuinely confused and displeased with what he thought would be his newest favorite device. He pulled the GPS companion out of his pocket and examined the coordinates again. The red dot was still flashing. "It's here," he said, "She's got to be here."

The team moved back through the house, opening closets and large cabinets to make sure that they hadn't missed anything. Outside, Tony and McGee crawled under the raised deck and still came up empty-handed.

Then Gibbs spotted the matted down bush further back in the yard. He waved his team over and they navigated through the overgrown brush until a small shed came into view.

Ziva's heart rate skyrocketed. This was when she would find out whether or not Rachel was safe. Tony edged in front of her and the look between them silently agreed that Ziva shouldn't be the first one to see what they were about to find.

"Federal Agents!" he announced.

And then the door was down.

* * *

_Two-forty-eight in the Morning, Sunday, October 10__th_

Tony's first coherent thought was that he swore that he'd turned his alarm clock off. And then he realized that he wasn't at home, but in a hospital and that that beeping wasn't an alarm clock, but Ziva's monitors.

He was awake and out of his chair before another thought crossed his mind. The relief that flooded him when he realized that she wasn't coding was tempered by his realization that her heart was racing because she was in the depths of a terrible nightmare.

Callie was inside the room before he even reached the side of the bed. She clicked the alarm off and reached for the code button, but Tony cut her off.

"It's just a nightmare," he said.

"_Agent DiNozzo_, her heart is racing," she said, putting on the most authoritative voice he'd ever heard come from her mouth.

"Trust me," he said, kneeling down in front of Ziva. "It's not the first time." He brushed the hair off her face and rubbed his fingers down her cheek.

Callie nodded, though she felt like she was violating some medical oath, and stepped back.

"Come on, Zi, come on, _baby_," He gently shook her. "Ziva." If she really was coding, he was wasting valuable time by trying to slowly and gently wake her up.

Ziva broke from her sleep with some unsettling combination of a mangled sob and a gasping breath.

She didn't know what was going on, but then she settled her sights on Tony.

Callie's eyes flicked from the monitors, which were slowly returning to normal, to Ziva, back to the monitors – now in normal range. She raised her eyebrows at Tony before stepping out of the room. She conceded herself to the notion that the boyfriend knew a thing or two.

Ziva took a few deep breaths and then closed her eyes again. The shadow of a hand looming across her face slid in front of her lids and she waited for the calming motion of his hand running down her hair.

She took a heavy breath as his fingers came up for their second pass, but this time, he let them linger, slowly caressing her forehead.

"You're back," she breathed.

"Is that what you dreamed about?" he asked, pain straining his voice, "That I d-didn't come back?"

She closed her eyes again, "No." She waited a beat. "I was just back in … with Saleem."

"You're here with me." He reminded.

"I know," she said. She opened her eyes and stared at him for a moment. "You're clean," she observed.

"So are you," he remarked, his eyebrows rising just a little.

"Callie forced me. I did not want to get out of bed."

"How'd being on your feet feel?" His voice lightened at the prospect of her improving health.

"Heavy, tiring."

He pushed himself off the ground, his knees aching, and sat down on the bed in front of her. "Well you better muster up some energy because I'm taking you home tomorrow. We've been here long enough."

"Hasn't it only been twenty-four hours?"

"Twenty-five hours too long."

She nodded and rested her head back against the pillow, a soft sight escaping from her chest.

He leaned forward and kissed her forehead before pushing himself off the bed and sitting back in his chair. He watched her regretfully close her eyes and attempt to snuggle back into the pillows and hospital sheets.

Within a few seconds, his eyes closed, too.

"Tony?" She asked a moment later.

"Yeah, Ziva?" He opened his eyes.

She'd never tell him, but sometimes she liked when he called her by her name above all of his other terms of endearment. He took such care with her name – like he'd never let it get hurt. It made her feel so safe and cared for that in that moment she swore she'd never feel pain again.

"I don't … never mind." She abandoned her statement, realizing that she had done it plenty of times before and she would probably have to do it again in the future.

"Ziva." He pressed.

"I just wish we were home tonight. It would be nice to be able to … feel you next to me. That is all." She tried to convey that it wasn't a big deal to her, but he knew it to be the opposite – especially if she had said it aloud.

He paused for a moment – rolling the idea around in his head and then got up and stepped outside the sliding door. "Callie?" he asked.

She turned in her chair and look at him.

"Would there be…. Is it okay… Can I crawl into bed with her?"

Callie observed the woman behind the glass and then looked at the man in front of her. She nodded. "Yeah, sure." She smiled warmly at him before reaching up and shutting the blinds in front of her. She had everything she needed on the computer.

Tony nodded and thanked her before slipping back into the room. He shut the door behind him and walked over to Ziva's bed, slipping off his shoes in the process.

He didn't know what she thought he'd been doing out there but when he set one knee on the bed and gently scooted her body over, she twisted her neck to look at him in bewilderment.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Making room for myself, what does it look like I'm doing?"

"Are you sure that you can do that –"

He settled in behind her and wrapped his arm around her waist, his hand firmly holding her hip. "Shh, Ziva." He kissed the back of her neck. "Sleep."

"I don't think I can," she whispered back after a few silent beats.

He noted the regret in her words and moved his hand from her waist to stroke her arm. "Which question do you want me to ask?"

"I do not even know." She shifted so that she was lying on her back, wincing when her IV tugged.

He moved the hair off her face. "Tell me something that you're thinking."

She closed her eyes for a moment, "That I haven't had a nightmare like that in months."

"Something else." He prompted.

"That I'm glad you're here."

He ran another hand down her cheek.

"That I'm scared I'll forget you're here and remember other things."

"I'll hold you tight," he promised.

"Thank you."

"Hey," he whispered, "I wouldn't want it to be anyone else holding you tight and I wouldn't want to be here holding anyone else." He looked at her. "You know that, right?"

"Yes." She smiled though the glow never reached her eyes.

"Just checking." He contented himself with tracing patterns along her hairline as she stared at the ceiling above them. He knew that there was any number of things that she was thinking about that she would never tell him.

"When was the last time we stayed up all night and talked?" She asked, suddenly twisting her face to look at him.

"Ziva." He groaned. He knew what she was doing. She'd done it before.

"You don't remember?" she asked.

"I do remember, actually, Zee-vah." He traced her lips with his pinky. "We were on Martha's Vineyard. It was our first night and after a lovely candlelit dinner overlooking Edgartown Harbor, I made sweet, sweet, _fiery_ love to you and _then_, we stayed up all night talking."

"You do remember."

"Yes, I do." He kissed her cheek. "Now, as much as I would like to repeat that night, I don't think here is the place. You might keep people up with your –"

She kneed him in the groin and though her force was considerably weakened, it still hurt and he didn't mind that because she got some joy out of the fact that she could still hurt him even at her weakest.

"That was a fun weekend," she mused. Her eyes flickered to him.

"Yes it was. I particularly enjoyed the following day, too. Do you remember what we did?" He asked. He would play along for a few minutes. He _did_ enjoy talking to her.

"That was when you slept on the beach all day."

"If I remember, you took a nice nap on the sands of South Beach as well, my ninja."

"Only when I knew you were awake, you know it killed me not to be able to stash my gun anywhere."

"Oh, I know."

"We should go to the beach more often. It is nice and…relaxing."

"We'll make it a habit, _baby_." He promised. He would probably promise her anything right now.

She sighed and nodded and he sensed that she was dreading closing her eyes and succumbing to the darkness.

"Ziva, you need to sleep so that I can take you home and love you and take you to the beach. I can't control what goes on in your head, but I _can_ promise that I will do everything I can to prevent it and stop it. Okay?"

She moved again, this time turning into Tony, burying her face into his chest.

* * *

_Sunset, Thursday, September 23__rd_

Rachel was about to slip into unconsciousness, her body depleted from long workdays with little sleep and the drugs that she'd been infused with prior to ending up handcuffed to the wall, when she heard movement outside.

Her head snapped up.

"That's them," Megan gasped, "I think we're in the woods or something."

"What happens when they come?" Rachel asked, she needed to have as much information as possible; she needed to have as much of a hand as she could. "And who are _they_?"

"I don't know!" Megan cried, "Two guys. They just asked me all about my family – beat me up when I wouldn't tell them anything."

Rachel nodded. "Okay, Okay." She heard the movements, the footsteps getting closer. "I got this. Just play along."

Megan nodded before squeezing her eyes shut. Rachel watched the girl's lips slowly begin to move and she swore that she must have been praying. Truth be told, Rachel would have been praying too, but right now she needed to figure out a lie to sell to these people.

There were more footsteps then and they were right in front of the door and Rachel could tell that, this time, there were definitely more than two people coming to see them. She didn't think that that was a good sign for either her or Megan.

But suddenly a familiar voice erupted from the other side of the door and he told her through two simple words that today was a success. She'd done her job – she'd saved the innocent girl and maybe, though she'd never tell anyone it had been part of her motivations, earned a little more respect from people who thought they needed to keep an eye on her.

At the end of the day, though, she had to admit, it was better than her previous situation.

A foot connected with the rotted wood door, snapping the frame open and Megan's screams filled the air as Tony's face and outstretched gun came into view.

Her team had come for her.

* * *

**Let me know what you think.**

**Cara**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** Remember this is taking place during an AU season 8 since we departed canon at the beginning of season 7, post Somalia.

* * *

**Chapter Nine: **

_Two-sixteen in the morning, Friday, September 24__th_

Ziva found Rachel in an empty conference room – a _dark_ empty conference room. It was just down the hallway from the one in which Megan Bradley had been reunited with her family. She'd just excused herself from the tear-filled scene in order to find her own recently returned loved one.

Rachel sat on the edge of the table, McGee's black NCIS windbreaker still draped over her shoulders and a mug of machine made espresso in her hand. The only light on in the room was coming from an open laptop a few tables away.

Ziva popped up and sat on the table next to her.

The two women sat in silence for a few moments, Rachel staring at the now room temperature coffee and Ziva at her nails.

"Today was good," Rachel said. She looked up from her mug and stared at the empty room in front of them, a small smile coming across her lips.

"For the Bradley's," Ziva agreed, "Yes, it most certainly was."

"Me too, though," She turned to Ziva, "I like this part."

Confused as to what she meant, Ziva asked, "Which part?"

"Helping people." She responded, "It wasn't like this at the CIA, I never got this feeling."

Ziva raised an eyebrow and encouragingly nodded her on.

"Like, Ziva, I _know_ that Megan Bradley will never forget me."

"You probably have saved her life and you were there with her during what hopefully was the scariest moments of her life."

"And I'm never going to forget her."

"So it was worth it then?" Ziva asked.

Rachel smiled and put the mug down on the table behind her. "There was never a question that it wouldn't be."

Ziva shook her head. "Not even for a second?" she asked.

Rachel paused and stared at her, she bit her lip before conceding, "Okay, maybe for like half a second."

"I've definitely had those moments," Ziva allowed, "Especially lately – with everything I have now."

Rachel laughed again, beginning to be giddy from the immense relief she felt and the sleep she desperately needed. "Between Tony and I, there's no way for you to be professional."

"That's only the half of it," Ziva agreed, "I have just as strong feelings towards McGee in terms of protection and Abby, too, for that matter."

"Guess they should fire you," Rachel sang.

The two women laughed together for the next few moments, embracing how unorthodox their work situation was. Between them, though, they still realized how lucky they were to have it and how fiercely they were willing to protect it.

* * *

_Half Past Nine in the Morning, Sunday, October 10__th_

Rachel clicked the button, again, changing the TV to another station. She didn't know the last time she spent a Sunday just sitting on her couch, watching TV.

Now she realized why she never did it. There was nothing on and she was bored out of her mind. How did people spend so much time just sitting with their TV? It wasn't entertaining in the least.

She flipped her phone open and shut. Nothing.

It wasn't that she expected them to call; it was just that ever since joining the CIA, she'd lost touch with a lot of her friends so, she valued all the friends she had left all the more. And when one of them was in trouble, it really messed her up.

_Really_ messed her up.

She was halfway through a _CSI_ episode when her phone rang. She sighed, relief flooding through her and reached for it, flipping it open. Only it wasn't Tony's name on the caller I.D. It was McGee.

_And so the lying began. _

"Williams." She answered.

"Rachel," he sighed, "Wow, at least someone has their phone on and is answering it."

"Quit whining, McGee," she laughed, hoping he wouldn't be able to read all of her forthcoming lies. "What's going on?"

"We have a case and Gibbs called Tony, but he didn't pick up and Ziva's phone isn't _even_ on. Gibbs was livid. I haven't seen him that way in awhile."

"Well, Tony and Ziva are working an…undercover op. They can't be reached." She threw her hand on her forehead and pushed herself up from the couch. _An undercover op?_ _Was she serious?_ She didn't know _where_ she came up with that or how she planned on keeping _that_ story up.

"What?" McGee spat. "No they're not. Vance wouldn't send them undercover and tell you and not Gibbs. That just wouldn't happen. Not anymore."

"I _am_ a pro at going undercover." She said. It was a last feeble attempt at keeping this story up.

"Wait." He paused, slowly coming to his senses. "Why did you tell me? Rachel…"

She sighed and bit her lip, pacing her living room. "McGee, please don't repeat that… its not true."

"What's going on?"

"Tony and Ziva are preoccupied. They have stuff they're doing and are currently unreachable."

"Work stuff?" He asked even though he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

"Umm…no." She said.

"Rachel something is clearly going on." He was getting really agitated now – his tone was harsher and she realized that she'd have to tell him the truth eventually. "I'm supposed to be your partner – you have to tell me what's going."

She sighed – she'd really lost her touch. "McGee… they're in the hospital."

"What?" He asked. "Why? What happened?"

She sighed again and took a deep breath. "Ziva's sick – some type of infection that she contracted in Somalia. It caused her some … _problems_." She stopped before spilling too much. Rachel suspected that Tony wouldn't have appreciated how much she'd already let slip. She had to stop before she told him the full extent.

"What type of _problems_?" he prodded. She could hear the skepticism in his voice.

"Just health problems, McGee," she snapped, "That's why she's in the hospital, so I'd really appreciate if you'd help me cover when Gibbs asks."

"Rachel –"

"McGee, _come on,_ just long enough for Tony to talk to him himself." She was at the end of her rope and resorted to pleading with her partner, hoping he could feel her desperation.

"Yeah, okay, fine… I suppose that means Abby, too."

"_Definitely_ includes Abby." Her eyes widened, thinking about what would happen if the most emotional member of the team found out. "She'd have a mental breakdown if she knew."

"Rachel, is Ziva like –"

"Yeah, she'll be fine – just cover for them, okay McGee?" Without the full story McGee was probably jumping to all sorts of conclusions, but she knew that it wasn't her place to tell.

He sighed and she knew that he would do it.

"I'll be there in a half hour." She said.

Tony sat in the ICU's waiting room and flipped his phone open and shut. This phone call was one that he was not looking forward to making.

He'd been woken up early that morning by McGee's incessant phone calls. He didn't need to wait for Rachel's text to know that they had a case. It was pretty obvious.

He hadn't wanted to make the call in front of Ziva – he didn't want her to have to hear him retell the story to Gibbs and even if he decided not to tell Gibbs the intimate details, he still didn't want her to see the look on his face when _he_ relived the past two days.

He opened his phone again and hit the second speed dial. Originally, he'd planned on just sending Gibbs an email later that evening. He would send one from Ziva, requesting a week and a half for medical leave and another from his own email requesting personal time. Yeah, Gibbs would still know that something was wrong and that their leave requests were related, but at least he wouldn't know the details and, more importantly, Tony wouldn't have to talk to him.

The phone rang once and then Gibbs answered. "It's about _damn_ time I heard from you or David, DiNozzo."

Tony nodded – he'd been expecting something of the sort. "Yeah, sorry Boss. We're in clear violation of three."

"The hell you are and you better have a good reason."

"We do." Tony said and then masked his voice as professional as he could and continued with his pre-planned speech. "Boss, I'm going to need a couple of personal days and Ziva's going to need a week and half for medical leave. I know that we both have more than enough comp time so I hope it won't be a problem. Sorry for the short notice, I was about to send you –"

"What's going on, DiNozzo?" Suddenly Gibbs' voice had gone from angry and detached to concerned and caring and that wasn't really something that Tony could handle.

"Ziva's…. uh…. sick," he mumbled. He closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face. This was not the time for him to lose his edge again.

"What does _sick_ mean, DiNozzo?"

"It means that… she's in the hospital with an infection – some left over shit from Somalia."

"You want to stop being so evasive, DiNozzo, and give me the whole story? What does _left over shit _mean?"

Tony swallowed. He knew that Gibbs wasn't trying to be so harsh and that it was really a reflection of his concern. "It's similar to an STD," the letters literally carved a whole in his chest. "It's one unique to the region that has a tendency to lay dormant for awhile." And that was as far as he could go.

"It's why she fainted," Gibbs remarked.

"Yeah," And suddenly he was so glad that he hadn't stayed in the room because things started just spilling out. "She's in the ICU – they're pumping her with these ridiculously potent antibiotics that make her feel like crap and I don't know what to do to help her and –"

"Slow down, DiNozzo," Gibbs said, effectively rooting him back to reality. "She's going to be fine, right?"

"Yeah." He sighed, "Yeah, she will." It was someone else who didn't get the chance to be fine – but he wouldn't – couldn't tell Gibbs yet. Not yet. Maybe not _ever_.

"Alright, then – I'll see you on Friday and her sometime next week. You got that? No earlier."

"Yeah." It was about all he could muster.

"Now go back to your partner."

"Thanks, Boss." Tony said before hearing the line go dead.

* * *

_Nine-ten in the evening, Saturday, September 25__th_

Friday night, Saturday and Sunday were much-welcomed reprieves from the stress that work had caused over the past week. The team spent Saturday night together, drinking and laughing in their favorite bar and toasting to Rachel's accomplishment. McGee couldn't help but profess the pride he had of his partner and he spent half the night talking about it.

"It really wasn't that big of deal," Rachel reminded, embarrassed smile still coming across her face.

"Rachel, just indulge us, will you?" Abby pleaded, "I mean if I went undercover and basically single-handedly saved a girl's life, I would expect you to fawn all over me."

"Well, I'm just happy that Megan's safe."

"And we're happy that _you're_ safe." Tony added from the other end of the table. He'd been mostly quiet all evening, sitting very close to Ziva and only nodding for responses.

"You all worry too much, but I do appreciate it. It's nice to have people behind me that I know actually care. Like had something happened, you'd be drinking your sorrows right now instead of celebrating."

"Don't even talk like that," Abby said, puss on her face.

Rachel held her hands up, "Sorry, Sorry – won't joke again. I swear."

The night continued in much the same way, happy banter sometimes interrupted by serious moments. The group dissipated around eleven and Tony and Ziva walked Rachel to her car.

"How are you doing?" Ziva asked. "Any residual…"

Rachel smiled and opened her car door, resting her chin on top of the window. "I'm okay. Everything went to plan – you all showed, I knew you would, so, I'm good."

Ziva nodded. She knew that Rachel would be fine, but for some reason she had this irrational desire to keep Rachel somewhere she could see her. It was just like she wanted to stare at her and remind herself that she was here. It must've been a shadow of what Tony had felt about her.

"Call if you need anything," Tony reminded.

"Will do," she said, sliding into her car, "Thanks guys."

As Rachel drove away, Tony and Ziva nodded and walked hand in hand back to their apartment. They hadn't gotten to spend time alone in more than a week and Tony couldn't have been happier to pull Ziva closer as they walked through the quiet streets. He rubbed his hand up and down her arm.

"Feel like I haven't held you in forever," he said.

Ziva sighed and further curled into him, "It has been a while," she agreed.

"So," he continued, voice light, "Ms. David, the night is young and we don't have anywhere to be tomorrow. What are we going to do with ourselves?"

"Hmm," she pondered, smirk on her face, "I think it might be nice to get into bed early, don't you?"

"I don't know," he played along, raising a brow at her, "I'm not in the least bit tired."

"Did you hear me mention sleeping?" she asked, stopping at the entrance to their building to glare at him.

And sleep they did not.

* * *

A/N2: Also, Shabbat Shalom and the promo for Shiva...craziness. Anyway, reviews are always much loved.

:) Cara


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

_Late Morning, Sunday, October 10__th_

Ziva was furiously wiping the blotches beneath her eyes when Tony slipped back into the room. She'd only been alone for a moment – Dr. Blair and her resident, Dr. Malrani had just left after doing a brief physical exam. They had offered to wait until Tony returned, but she'd asked that they just get it over with it. Tony didn't need to witness that. He'd seen enough already.

His face fell when he saw her and she didn't have a moment to come up with a story to tell him.

"Zi?" he asked, crouching down next to her, "What's up?"

She shook her head unable to say anything without the levies breaking again. "Nothing," she whispered.

He ran a finger down her cheek and smiled, "Now, Sweetcheeks," he said, "You think I buy that one-liner? It may work on your other lovers, but not me."

She choked out a mangled laugh and took a small, quivering breath. "Dr. Blair was back. They found some things in the … physical."

His heart sunk when he realized that she'd been alone for something that was probably uncomfortable for a number of reasons. He leaned up and kissed her forehead. "You should have had someone get me. I would have held you."

She closed her eyes and shook her head again. "It was … uncomfortable. You have seen enough."

He sighed and took her hand. It seemed that while he'd been gone they had removed one of her IV's. He rubbed his thumb back and forth, careful to avoid the black and blue circles that the needle had made. "Please, please, don't worry about…bothering me or something, okay?"

She nodded.

"Alright," he nodded and kissed her forehead again. For a moment, he wondered when she would stop allowing his constant displays of affection. "So, do you want to tell me what's wrong or…we don't have to talk if you don't want to."

"They were not sure. Dr. Blair said that they would run some tests and then come back." Her voice quivered as she spoke.

He popped up off his knees and settled on the side of the bed next to her. Slinging an arm around her shoulder, he pulled her towards him. He rubbed his hand up and down her arm a few times. "It's all going to be fine, you know."

She sighed.

"Really," he continued, "I mean, I decided that you and me, we can get through anything."

"_Anything_?" she asked and he sensed that she was beginning to slip out of the dark place she'd entered.

"Yeah, yeah, think about it Ziva, we've been through so much and look, look at us –"

"We're in a hospital ICU room." She deadpanned.

"Together."

She thought for a moment before nodding. "Together." She agreed, wiping her eyes.

They sat in silence for what seemed liked hours, but probably only lasted less than twenty minutes. Ziva was both physically and emotionally drained and couldn't bring herself to say anything else. She just needed to be home – in her own bed with Tony's arms around her so that she could forget that any of this ever happened.

By the time that Dr. Malrani re-entered the room, Tony had put his feet up on the bed and leaned back against its pillows. Ziva, in-turn, had slid down on the mattress and curled into his side, her head resting on his chest as he slowly, methodically ran his hand up and down her hair.

Pina felt her heartstrings tug as she grabbed a stool and pulled it over to the side of the bed. She liked this couple, she did and she hated giving them anymore bad news than they'd already received.

"Hey, guys," she whispered, "Sorry to bother again, but Dr. Blair asked me to discuss the latest development."

Tony nodded, "It's no bother." He looked down at Ziva, her eyes seemed fixed on his shirt and he doubted she would take an active role in this particular conversation. She'd reached the end of her rope. He looked back at Dr. Malrani for her to continue.

"Okay," She said, her voice still low, soft and non-threatening, "We found evidence inside of Ziva's cervix that lead us to believe that she has or had another strain of bacteria inside her other than the first one that we've been treating. The good news is it's a really minute trace so we're not too concerned about it, but we would never want to just ignore it."

Tony moved his hand from Ziva's hair to her back, gently drawing comforting patterns. "So where does that leave us?" he asked.

Pina nodded. "Dr. Blair still thinks that you can go home sometime today. She's just going to give you a very high dosage antibiotic that'll need to be taken every four hours for the next two days. She wants to see you back on Wednesday to check in."

"I think we can handle that." Tony said.

* * *

_Monday, September 27__th_

Monday morning the team was eager to tie up all the loose ends in the Bradley case. The other NCIS agents that had provided back up at the house where Rachel and Megan had been found had taken over the investigation in the early morning hours of Friday. They'd found the muscle kidnappers sometime during the day on Friday and through a weekend long interrogation, had gathered enough information to connect the nervous looking Private Elliot Benjamin to the center of the case. He'd been the center of the

blackmail and orchestrated both kidnappings. He'd hid his identity from the henchmen and had dangerously deceived all of the men that he worked with.

All that was left for the MCRT was report filling – and lots of it for their newest member. Undercover paperwork always promised to tower high above one's desk.

Rachel spent a majority of the day at her desk. She had much different paperwork to fill out than the rest of the team and Gibbs wanted it all done by the end of the day.

Sometime in the mid afternoon, she got up to listen in as the team did a full background on Elliot "Todd" Benjamin.

He was twenty-five years old, had never risen in the ranks. Commanding officers didn't have bad things to say about him, but they didn't have good things to say about him either. The only notable thing they mentioned was that he, through his countless years in the Navy, had continued to act like he'd just joined and didn't know a thing. He was average on the outside, but when you dug a little deeper, he seemed to do everything just a little _below_ average. He'd evidently started blackmailing his superiors earlier in the fall when he'd once again been passed on for a promotion.

"Family?" Gibbs asked.

"Just a half brother," Tony said, and he clicked the remote bringing Benjamin's enlistment papers onto the screen. It was from seven years ago and listed his brother, Jonathan Hannigan as his primary next of kin. "Jonathan Hannigan and his wife, Victoria Williams Hannigan are listed as Benjamin's next of kin and then subsequent secondary emergency contact."

_Victoria Williams_. It couldn't be. Rachel must have heard it wrong.

Gibbs nodded, seemingly satisfied with the information that they had on their primary contact. "Send it all to legal," he said, "Their turn."

Rachel walked back towards her desk and sat down. Victoria was a common name and so was Williams. It didn't mean anything. Her face fell in her hands and she ran her fingers through her hair. It couldn't be. It just couldn't be.

"Tony," Rachel heard Ziva prompt, her voice guarded but curious. She had to do what Rachel could not. "Pull up the wife's driver's license."

Rachel looked up just in time to see the plasma screen shift. And then a New York state license came into view and she was older than the pictures that Rachel had seen. She was older and …more done up, but that was Rachel's mother staring back at her.

She rose from her desk and, in a trance, walked towards the screen. Hand over her mouth, she stood directly in front of the woman's face. She swallowed. She barely even remembered her. She could barely hear her voice in her head, but the feeling inside of her was so definite. That was her mother. Her mother's driver's license with her mother's address. It was the woman who had abandoned she and her brother. She'd left Rachel and Jacob to fend for themselves. Eric didn't suit her anymore and neither did the children she shared with him. Rachel had always felt like she'd been erased from the face of the earth, but here was tangible proof that she was alive and living a life in a place.

All the lonely memories of Rachel's childhood came flooding back to her. This woman had been out there, living her life as Rachel had suffered through a childhood without a mother and with a sorry excuse for a father. She stumbled backwards and knocked into McGee's desk, falling into his lap.

"Woah," he said, "Rach, you okay?"

He helped her back to her feet and she suddenly realized that all of eyes of team Gibbs were upon her. It was like everyone had frozen in time.

She swallowed. "I'm… uh…that's my mother."

"Your mother?" Gibbs confirmed.

She pushed her hair off of her face, "Y-y-yes."

McGee pulled his chair out from behind his desk and guided his shaking partner into the seat. Rachel didn't really know what she was doing, but she slowly followed his movements and sank down. She folded her arms across her chest and took five long, slow and calculated deep breaths. She closed her eyes and tried to forget that she felt like her world had just been turned upside down. She had spent so much of her life convincing herself that her mother had just vanished. She'd evaporated off of the earth. She wasn't in Rachel's life so there was no way that she existed anywhere else in the world. It wasn't possible, because it wouldn't have been right.

But she had been around. She'd been somewhere with someone and some people and she was living a life. She was living a life minus her son and daughter. And that was when Rachel crumbled. She needed Jacob so much right now. He would've been able to make sense of this for her. He would've explained everything. She needed him to hold her, to tell her that everything was still okay and that she didn't need that woman anyway.

And then suddenly there was a whisper in her ear and strong familiar arms coming around her and pulling her up. "Come on," Ziva whispered, "Let's go for a walk."

Rachel took loud and erratic breaths, trying hard get her hysterics under control. She leaned against Ziva as she was guided down the hallway and into a stairwell and out a back exit and towards a bench in the one of the Navy Yard's courtyards. She pulled Rachel down into the bench and pulled her head down to her shoulder, hand brushing through her hair and mouth attempting to quiet her.

As Rachel began to control herself, she pulled away from Ziva and leaned over, her head falling in her hands as she stared at the ground.

That woman had just made her make a fool out of herself in front of the entire NCIS squadroom. She still had power over Rachel's feelings just like she had all through Rachel's childhood. Then, she had felt inferior because it was clear that she wasn't enough for her mother and now, she felt inferior because she realized other things were.

She turned her head towards Ziva, catching her staring at her out of the corner of her eye. "I looked like an idiot, didn't I?"

"You were caught off guard," She replied.

"You wouldn't have done that," Rachel murmured.

Ziva laid a hand on Rachel's back. "Rachel, not that it should matter, but I've had very similar reactions to my father and his actions or lack there of so I would have done that, Rachel."

Rachel sighed and nodded. She pushed herself back up and turned towards Ziva. "This is going to eat me alive."

"You cannot let it."

"I want to go see her."

"Rachel," Ziva cautioned. She shook her head slightly.

"No, Ziva," Rachel pressed, "I think I have to." She took a deep breath, "If I don't go confront her and say my peace, I'll forever wonder 'what if.' Because Ziva, what if I go there and she wants to be apart of my life and get to know me and what if she wants to apologize?" Her voice took on a wistful tone as she thought about all of the ways that her brokenness could be repaired with just one conversation.

Ziva looked at Rachel and nodded once, "Yes, but what if she doesn't want anything to do with you?"

Rachel's momentarily hopeful exterior fell and she swallowed, "Then I guess that will be that and I'll be upset for a bit and you'll put up with me and then I'll move on."

Ziva nodded, accepting her statement and Rachel knew that Ziva knew that this was something she had to do. She'd carried her mother's abandonment with her for most of her life and she needed to be able to move on and this was one of the only ways that she'd be able to do it.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for reading as always. And please let me know what you think. Cara. **


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

_Midnight, Tuesday, September 28__th_

"Tony," Ziva whispered. She turned from her side, wriggling out of his grasp and faced him, head braced on her hand to look at his sleeping form. "Tony," she whispered again, this time a bit louder.

"Mhmm." In his sleep, his hand moved to her back and pulled her closer. She swatted it and hissed his name again. "_Tony!_"

He opened one eye and glared at her. "Why," he drawled out, his voice laced with semi-serious exasperation, "are you hitting me awake, my darling ninja?"

She huffed and rolled back onto her back and stared at the ceiling – so _perhaps_ the swatting had been a bit much.

Tony sighed, he swore he'd just fallen asleep, but she was clearly bothered by _something_ and needed to talk. He turned on his side, mirroring her previous position and stared at her; he was fully awake now.

"What's on your mind?" he asked.

"Go back to sleep," she groaned, "I'm sorry I woke you so… _rudely_."

He chuckled and shook his head. She was almost pouting now – there was no way he'd be able to deny that face. "I'm wide awake, now, _baby_. Tell me why you're not sleeping."

"Rachel is going to drive to New York this weekend." She stated – eyes still glued to the ceiling.

"To see her mother," He surmised.

"Yes and I know that it is something she needs to do. She can't just ignore that she now has this woman's address, but it makes me nervous."

"You think she is going to get hurt."

"Not physically, but yes, _emotionally_." She turned to her side and pursed her lips, ready to include him in her cynical thoughts. "I don't see how she'd make it home okay if Victoria shuts her out. I mean you saw the way she reacted in the bullpen. It was involuntary. This woman, rightfully so, carries a lot of weight for her."

"You want to go with her," he smiled. _Now_ he understood where this conversation was going. There was nothing he found more endearing than Ziva's fierce protection of Rachel. He could never help but think it was shades of how she would be as a mother.

"Do you think she'll get mad if I ask to go with her?" she asked.

He leaned over and kissed her forehead, "No. I think she doesn't want to ask you."

"I cannot let her go by herself," she responded, seemingly satisfied with their conversation and what she had decided. Ziva turned back on her other side and let Tony pull her back into him.

He dropped a kiss on her shoulder blade and ran his hand up and down her arm a couple of times. As he felt the tension seep from her and watched her eyes flutter shut again, he sighed and tucked his head down, ready to sleep before some ill-timed _grab your gear_ call woke him up in the pre-dawn hours.

"Tony," she broke through the silence just as his eyes had felt heavy enough to stay closed.

"Mhmm?"

"You don't mind me going? We have been busy lately…"

"Ziva, it's Rachel." He said.

"Yes, I know."

"Rachel," he said again for effect. "She needs you."

She nodded and laced her fingers through the hand that anchored her to him.

_Nine-thirty, Wednesday, September 29__th_

She hadn't done this many times before, only once, but opening that front door, stepping inside and heading down the creaky wooden stairs just like she knew the rest of her team had done for years, felt like one of the most natural things Rachel had done in a while.

She could imagine that Ziva was the type who paced while she talked, getting closer and closer as the conversation progressed.

McGee probably waited to be invited in, hanging at the top of the stairs until their boss made some type of remark about him not having all day to wait for him to talk.

Rachel was positive that Abby just hurried over and spill her guts and Tony…she surmised that Tony's actions changed by the visit and the content that he wanted to discuss.

Rachel was some sort of a middle ground between all of them, a common observation of those around her. She kind of liked being part of their melting pot. She came all the way down the stairs and usually took up residence on one of the wood benches – complete disregard for their questionable weight capacity.

And that is exactly what she did Wednesday night. She exchanged a glance with Gibbs as she hurried down the stairs, scared that if she gave herself enough time, she might convince herself she didn't need to air this to him. She did, though and so she came down the stairs, locked eyes with her boss and popped herself up and onto one of his benches, her legs swaying just a bit off of the cement ground.

"I came to apologize." She explained.

"Yeah?" he asked. He turned away from his project to look at her – his face some semblance of bemusement and intrigue. "And what exactly did you do wrong?"

She scratched her head, "Well, I just know that for the past few days I haven't exactly been totally _on_ at work."

"Ehh," he said, "There's a lot on your mind." He turned back to the wood in front off him and she took that as a sign to continue.

"There is," she agreed. She paused and ran a hand threw her hair. "Which is why I'm going to New York this weekend." The words hung in the air for a moment and she could've sworn she saw him stiffen for a fraction of a second.

"Yeah?"

"I have to meet her and talk to her and close some things." And as she said the last bit, she watched his head bob only slightly. She realized that Jacob must be able to relax now, because she has so many people looking out for her well being.

"Whatever you have to do, Williams."

She nodded and then looked down at the floor. "I know it's dumb – going. I want her approval too much. I mean, do you think she'll like me?"

He chuckled, then and it was a sound that she's not completely used to hearing from him and it peaked her interest and it must have been a good thing, but then he turned around. She knew that wasn't a positive sign.

"Williams," he sighed, "I'm not sure how anyone couldn't like you, but I also don't know how anyone could abandon you as a little girl – as a _baby_."

The harsh reality of his prediction weighed her shoulders down and she was quick to want to silence him, "I know, I know."

"So whatever happens, Rachel – don't forget about the rest of us around here."

"She's my mom, though." It was a last ditch effort and it's weak because if Gibbs' gut doesn't think that things will go well then…chances are they won't.

"Family…" he said, "Family isn't about all the specifics, Williams. There are enough people around here who'll attest to that."

Rachel goes silent for a while then. All his words ring true in her head and in her heart, but she's an eternal optimist and the woman birthed her. She can't believe that that doesn't count for something. Maybe she'll have to accept that someday – someday soon – but not right now. She does take his other words to heart too, though. She isn't alone and she never will be – not with these people. So she took a big breath and she said, "Okay," because that is okay.

"Okay?" he confirmed.

She hopped off his bench; that should be a final confirmation to him that she's going to be okay no matter what happens this weekend. She headed up the stairs and waved.

"Hey, Williams," he called and she was at the top of the stairs, just about to head through the door.

She turned.

"Don't forget," he said.

"Yeah, yeah," she smiles, "I know – don't tell the others how many words you uttered."

"See you tomorrow, Williams."

* * *

_Sunday, October 10__th_

It was approaching seven o'clock that night by the time Tony and Ziva arrived home. It had taken them most of the day to go through all of the necessary discharges procedures.

They'd spent the twenty-minute car ride in companionable silence. Ziva was exhausted and had spent most of the ride with her eyes closed and her head back against the headrest. Tony had done his best to just focus on the drive home, but he couldn't help thinking that they'd dodged another bullet, yet still gotten hit. He kept forgetting that – that they hadn't escaped from this unscathed. It was like he was in denial. He was in denial about the existence of his own child. Did it get lower than that?

At one point, Tony had been pulled from his thoughts by the sound of Ziva's hand moving from the center of her lap to the side of the seat. He had gently reached over and looped his fingers through hers. They stayed that way until he pulled up into the parking spot in front of the building.

"Home, sweet home." He whispered, squeezing her hand.

She sighed and opened her eyes, taking a moment to stare at the street in front of them before turning to look at her boyfriend. He was already reaching behind her to grab the duffle bag from the backseat.

She didn't know what to do. In the hospital she could pretend that it was all a dream – nightmare, but being home somehow made it real to her. She'd left this place with a growing baby inside of her and returned hollow.

Turning back, Tony noticed she still hadn't moved, so he reached over and unlocked her seatbelt. She caught it as slipped up her arm and untangled herself.

"Want to get out?" he asked.

She shook her head, trying to pull herself out of her reverie. "Sorry, I was just thinking."

"Anything good?" He kept his tone light, hoping that she wouldn't slip somewhere that she didn't need to be and he couldn't bear to go.

"No."

He looked at her for a moment and then nodded. He climbed out of the car and went to help her on the other side, but she, of course, already had the door open. "I was going to grab that," he mentioned.

She shook her head at him in amusement and gingerly pushed herself out of the seat. She was shaky on her feet as she reached the curb and he scrambled closer. "I'm fine, Tony." She tried to dismiss him.

He let his hand hover just a fraction of inch away from the small of her back. "Just humor me, okay?"

She nodded and they slowly and carefully made their way up the front stairs and inside the building. She hated how the simplest and easiest of movements, just walking up the stairs, was difficult and tiring and uncomfortable. Part of her screamed for Tony to just put her out of her misery and carry her to their apartment. She wanted him to carry her inside, lay her on the couch and sit with her as she cried for the next year or maybe even forever. The other part of her was determined to not only get inside the building herself but also up the next, lengthier set. She wouldn't be taken down that easily and she would find a way to pull herself together.

Inside the building, she slowed and Tony let his hand rest on her back as he guided her towards the elevator. "No shame in taking the elevator, Zi." He murmured against her hair.

He tapped the up arrow and the doors opened in front of them. Ziva sighed as he threw an arm around her shoulder and walked them inside. They did have a thing for elevators.  
"Is there shame in asking you to carry me?" She asked. Her voice was dry, resigned to the dark and twisted humor she viewed her life to be.

He chuckled and shook his head, kissing her on the temple. "Nah." He paused, "Wait, you serious? You feel that bad? I'll carry, you know."

The elevator reached the floor and the doors opened. She shook her head. "It is not that far, though I know you would."

"Anything for you," he sung. When they finally reached their door, he pulled the keys out of his pocket and opened the house to them. Ziva continued with her slow movements and gingerly stepped over threshold and into the dim light of the apartment. Tony shut and locked the door behind them, stopping to turn a few lights on before following Ziva into the kitchen. She had sat down in one of the kitchen table chairs.

He dropped the bag in the doorway and came to stand in front of her. "Can I make you something or go out for anything?" He asked.

She pushed herself from the chair and shook her head. "No, but thank you." She looked around the room for a moment, "I think… I think I am just going to take a shower and go to bed. I am looking forward to being back in our bed."

"Okay, babe," he leaned forward and kissed forehead. "I'm just going to grab a sandwich or something, then I'll be in."

She nodded, not making eye contact with him and then stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder. For a second, she let all of herself just collapse into him.

She'd been so visibly distant in the car, Tony had thought that she would continue that way all evening, especially when she tried to her hardest not to look him in the eye. He hadn't been prepared for her sudden movement, but he had caught her anyway and wrapped his arms tightly around her lower back. "I got you," he whispered, "I promise."

"I know." She breathed. "Tony . . ."

"Yeah?"

"I… I still don't think my brain fully understands what happened."

He ran his hand up and down her back, "I don't think mine does either."

"Is Rachel the only one who knows?"

"Yeah."

"Can we wait a while before we tell the others?" She asked. She hated to deprive him of the comfort of his friend's sympathies, but she was convinced that it would break her.

"As long as you want."

"I don't think I could bear Abby's reaction."

"Me neither." He sighed, "Me neither, Ziva." He turned his head and pecked her cheek. "I love you, you know that."

"I know," she turned her head and kissed the side of his neck. "I love you, too." She sighed. "Thank you for this weekend, for never leaving my side."

He didn't respond, but wrapped his arms tighter around her waist and pulled her closer. The last almost year and a half had showed him how hard it was to watch someone you love in pain, but like anyone, he had learned to adapt. He had told himself that as long as he loved her as much as possible, he was doing all he could and that was all that mattered. But now, the game had changed again. He found that it was even more difficult to comfort someone when he, himself, was in just the same amount of pain.

"Go take a shower," he whispered, pulling himself back. "I'll still be here when you're done."

She nodded, lifted her head off his shoulder and tucked a hair behind her ear. She began to walk away, but before she could get far, he grabbed her hand and pulled her back. Pressing his lips to hers, he captured her in the most desperate and hungry kiss. He poured every ounce of himself into holding onto her, letting her know that he was still here. He was here and so was she.

A few minutes later Tony was standing in front of the counter, scrounging up the little turkey and cheese and mayonnaise that were left in the fridge to make himself a sandwich. They had other food that he could have used to make into a real dinner, but if he was the only one eating, it wasn't really worth it.

He heard her bare footsteps enter the room and stop just feet from him. If he wasn't so attuned to her, he probably wouldn't have heard them at all and he definitely wouldn't have understood what they meant. They'd moved slowly and carefully; she still wasn't feeling well, that was evident, but what was more disturbing was that she thought they were at some delicate impasse in which she had tiptoe around her partner.

Tony found it hard to hide his reaction when he turned around to find her in nothing but that silk bathrobe that he found so attractive. How was it possible that that woman had just spent the last two nights in the ICU?

She blushed before explaining. "I…uh…need a favor." He nodded, encouraging her to continue. "The shower is slippery and I'm still unsteady on my feet. I just… I would feel better knowing that you were right outside."

"Yeah, sure," He smiled at her. He grabbed his sandwich and followed her into the bathroom, shutting the door and flipping the fan on. He sat down on the edge of the tub and tried to think of something to talk about as she undressed.

"I feel like I'm being ridiculous," she mumbled. She reached inside the shower door and turned the water on, letting it warm for a moment.

"You're not being ridiculous, Ziva, you barely made it up the stairs. I'd think I was going to slip too."

'This whole weekend has been…a hit to my self image." She shook her head at the thought of what had gone on. It disgusted her – being so weak and needing to be tended to by nurses.

"A blow to your ego?"

"That too," she shut the door behind her and he watched as her fogged form grabbed the soap and lathered up.

"Well, I still think you're dangerous," he called over the running water. He expected her to come back with some cheeky retort along the lines of as _you should_, but instead, he only saw the slight movement of her head of her head up and down.

He got up from the tub and leaned against the pre-fogged shower door. If she was getting upset, she was even less steady on her feet. He took another bite of his sandwich and racked his brain again for something light to talk about.

"Is Rachel a good liar?" he asked.

"Professionally, of course, she was trained by the CIA, but personally, not quite. If something was wrong when she would call me, I could pull it out of her in less than a minute."

"Yeah, well, hopefully we're in luck. I don't think McGee is quite as adept at things like that as you are, Sweetcheeks."

"Maybe not, but Gibbs certainly is." She commented.

He groaned. "You're right."

He popped the last bit of turkey and cheese into his mouth just as the running water ceased and the shower turned off. He slapped his hands together, dusting off any crumbs and grabbed a towel from the linen closet. He turned around, unfolding the white cloth, just as she opened the door and reached for her robe, trying just a bit too hard to keep herself covered.

"It's not the first time I've seen you naked, you know," he mentioned. She offered him a small smile and stepped into the towel, allowing him to wrap it and his arms around her.

"Why does it feel like it?" She asked. Her voice was barely above a whisper.

His heart sank and he kissed the crown of her head, "I don't know, baby, I don't know." They would being pulled backwards at a frighteningly fast pace and Tony felt like no matter how deep he dug his feet in, there was no way to stop it or even slow them down just a bit.

Ziva turned in his arms to face him and he noticed the water running out of her eyes and the pleading, desperate look they held inside of them. "Tony, can we just go to bed?" She asked. "I … I" she stumbled across her words as she tried to not to break, "I need you to hold me."

"Yeah, hon, here sit down," he steered her towards the edge of the tub, "I'll get you some clothes."

Ziva sat down on the edge of the tub, her hands griping the side and waited for Tony to return. He was back in a minute and handed her a pile of folded clothes before leaving her alone to change.

As the door closed and she heard Tony's footsteps disappear into the abyss of the bedroom, she felt her chest constrict as a wave of panic came over. She'd gotten over her fear of being unclothed around Tony a long time ago, but it was clear that the events of this weekend and all of the nightmares that had resurfaced were determined to reverse that progress. Ziva leaned over and let her head fall into hands. This couldn't be happening again.

She let herself cry as the panic attack took over all of her body. All the thoughts that she had longed suppressed waded up to the surface until a montage of everything she'd been through clouded her vision – she was alone in Israel, her team was gone, Eli was all she had left, he didn't trust her, she had to prove her loyalty, she was on the Damocles, she left Malachi behind, she was in Saleem's camp, she was overpowered, she was trapped, she tortured, she was abused, she was used –

"Ziva?" He knocked at the bathroom door.

She just didn't understand why he'd come for her – after all they'd been through, after all she'd done to him.

"Ziva?" He asked again.

She didn't deserve him. It was clear that she was damaged far beyond repair – this weekend had highlighted that. She couldn't even carry a child.

She tried to take a deep breath and calm down but there was something inside of her that prevented that and so she went back into her panic attack.

"_Babe_, are you okay?"

Ziva opened her mouth to respond but nothing came out.

"Ziva, I'm coming in."

She heard him speak but the tears clouded her eyes and she startled when she found him knelt down in front of her.

His hands came up to cup her cheeks. "Zi," he sighed.

Somehow grounded to reality by the hands on her face, Ziva took her first deep breath in several minutes. She put her hand on his arm and leaned into Tony. He held her close for a few moments, wondering what could have lead to such a breakdown.

"Ziva," He asked into her hair, moments later, "_Baby_, what can I do?"

"I panicked, Tony." She whispered, "I was back in Israel alone. I was alone in Somalia. I just I don't understand why … _Tony_, I love you."

Not really understanding what she was trying to say or explain, Tony kissed her forehead and pushed her back so her could look her in the eye, "I love you too, Ziva and I promise you'll never be alone like that again."

He pulled her head back to his chest and held her there, fingers running through her hair and words offering some sort of solace until her trembles slowly wore off and she managed to hold herself up.

"I don't know what came over me," she said.

He nodded and pulled the shirt that was still on her lap out from under her elbows. He unfolded the t-shirt and helped her slip it over her head and through her arms, the white towel still firmly in place.

Tony kissed Ziva's cheek before taking the pants and underwear from her lap, too. He took her hand and helped her to her feet. She lifted each foot for him as he gently slid the underwear and then the pants over them and up her legs. It wasn't until they were practically all the way up that he reached for the knot of the towel. He looked at her first and he waited until Ziva nodded before untying it and letting the cloth fall to the ground.

She adjusted the shirt and pants back into place as Tony slid his arm around her shoulders, kissing her temple. "Come on," he said, "You must be exhausted."

She tipped her head into his chest and nodded into him. She was exhausted – so emotionally and physically drained.

She leaned on him as they walked into the bedroom and let him pull down the covers for her and help her into their bed, a place she'd only dreamed of last night.

Tony sat down next to her on the bed; half of his body hanging off and his arm draped back around her shoulders. "You really should let me make you something to eat, Ziva. You have to take that pill soon and it'll be miserable on an empty stomach."

She sighed. He was right. "What's in the fridge?"

"Nothing good really. I'll be a short order cook, though." She made a face, clearly not understanding the importance of a short man who could make her anything she wanted. He smiled, not feeling the need to explain. "Seriously, name something and I'll try to make it." It was the least he could do.

She giggled, still enamored by his ability to make her feel better by just opening his mouth. "Um…" she thought for a moment. "Grilled cheese?"

"Oh, come on, Ziva," he threw a hand against his heart, "you're offending me, any idiot can make a grilled cheese."

"I thought you'd make me anything I wanted," she teased and he saw that ghost of a smirk come across her face, the girly one that made him weak at the knees. "Hmm?"

"That low maintenance?" He asked.

"I wouldn't call myself low maintenance after this weekend, Tony."

"Well, I would," he said. He stood up from the side of the bed and handed her the TV remote from the bedside table. "One grilled cheese coming up," he announced as he exited the room and headed for the kitchen.

* * *

**A/N: **I'd really like to know what people think; haven't gotten a lot of reviews lately. Anyway, thanks for reading all the same. Cara


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Wow, I have to thank all of the guests who left reviews. I appreciate them so much and they help me in directing this story. Please, please continue with them. All the logged in reviews as well - I love being able to write a message back to you. **

**Anyway - here is Chapter 12. **

**Just a reminder that this is an AU Season 8 that departed ****canon after Good Cop, Bad Cop. It is a follow-up to _Rachel's Story: Lock and Key_. **

* * *

**Chapter Twelve**

_Half Past Nine, Sunday October 10__th_

Late Sunday night, Rachel trotted down the stairs from the squadroom and entered Abby's lab. The music was blaring and the forensic scientist stood at her computer, combing through their latest evidence in the case they'd picked up early that morning. The pile on Abby's table was beginning to look like a small mountain and Rachel only had more to add to its growing size.

"Hi, Abby," Rachel greeted, taking up a spot next to the Goth at the computer.

"Hello… _Rachel_," Abby said, she eyed the newest agent up and down and smirked, "I've been hoping you would saunter down here this evening."

Rachel laughed nervously. "And why's that?" Either Abby was joking and this was about something trivial or she was about to get interrogated about Ziva.

Abby turned to her suddenly, her face turning serious just as fast as her body moved and her pigtails bounced. She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes. "Because Ziva fainted on Friday and now she and Tony are out for a week and no one will tell me anything and I'm not an idiot, Rachel, I know the two events are connected and I'm looking for a little information."

"Everything's fine, Abby." She kept her tone level and bore into Abby's eyes. She could lie convincingly. She could.

"That was a blatant lie." Abby called her bluff.

"I have no information."

"Another lie. Rachel," she warned, "You're about to cross over to the bad side –withholding information from me."

"Abby –"

Abby held up a finger to Rachel's lips. "Don't go there, Rachel. Don't cross over to the dark side. I don't like being kept out of things – especially when they involve Ziva. Not since we almost lost her. I will not lose her again and you will tell me everything that is going on." Abby took a step back, then, removed her finger and waited for Agent Williams to respond.

Rachel was about to open her mouth and plead her case when her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and saw the I.D.

_Tony DiNozzo_.

She held up a finger to Abby, asking her to wait and excused herself to take the call. She flipped the phone open, saying hello to Tony, as she moved toward the door out of the lab.

Abby had other plans, though, and the door shut and locked right in front of Rachel's face.

"Abby!" She screamed, "Let me out."

"Hand over the phone, Williams, and you're free to go." Abby came up behind her and held out her hand.

"It's McGee," she lied.

"I saw that it was Tony."

Rachel held the receiver up to her ear and spoke, "I _swear_ I didn't break – she called all my bluffs."

Tony laughed on the other end of the line, but Rachel could tell that it was forced and that he wasn't really amused by what was going on. "Don't worry about it, Rach, you've lied enough, I'm sure. I'll talk to her."

Sighing, Rachel handed the phone over her shoulder to Abby. She nearly snatched it from her and then began speaking faster than Rachel cared to comprehend after the last few days as she anxiously paced her lab.

"Tony, what's going on?" Abby demanded, "Is Ziva okay? I don't understand why you all think it's okay to keep things from me. It's not. I'm freaked out, Tony – you know how protective I am of Ziva after everything."

"I know, I know," Tony placated, "I'm sorry, Abs, we didn't mean to keep you in the dark." He took a deep breath and began to calmly tell Abby some watered down version of what had happened. "Ziva's fine, now. We spent two nights in the hospital, but she's okay now. It was just an infection and she needed some IV antibiotics. Now she's resting and I'm just going to hang out with her – we have comp time coming out of our eyeballs so I thought I might actually put it to good use."

"What kind of infection? How'd she contract it?" And part of Tony knew that this was just the scientist in her coming out, but still, he hated saying this out loud again.

"Abs, I'm really tired, mind if we call it a night?"

"It was something she contracted in Africa, wasn't it?" Abby asked, her voice lowering more levels than Rachel had ever seen. She turned towards the newest member of team Gibbs and right there, Rachel knew that the real truth couldn't be hidden too much longer. Abby just knew.

"Yeah, Abs."

"I'll give you back to Rachel," She murmured, handing Rachel back her cell phone. Rachel stayed put on the table that she had taken to sitting on and said hello again to Tony.

"That was rough," Tony sighed.

"I'm sure," Rachel agreed. "Do you need me to come by and sit with her for a bit so you can go home?"

"No, no," Tony said, "Actually, I called to let you know that we just got home. But… ah…they found some other stuff…possibly another, thankfully weaker, strand inside her and so now she's on these other high test pills for home, but we're home so that's all that matters."

"I'll check in when I can," she told him, not wanting Abby to be around when she spoke about this newest finding.

"Still with Abby?"

"Yes."

"Tomorrow, maybe, then. I think she could really use you, in person."

"Definitely, Tony. Yes." She hopped off of the table and moved towards the door, feeling Abby's eyes on her as she moved.

"Thanks, Rachel. Bye."

As she closed the phone, Rachel turned back to her newest favorite Goth. The look of indignation had partially returned to Abby's face, but she wouldn't be getting anything else out of Rachel. The rest was far too…she didn't even know what it was and that was reason enough to not talk about it.

_Nine Forty-Five, Sunday October 10__th_

When Tony hung up with Rachel and Abby, he flipped Ziva's sandwich onto its other side. He tried to wipe the conversation with Rachel and Abby from his mind. He'd heard the hurt in the Abby's voice and he felt bad that he was still keeping things from her, but the alternative was too painful for him to even consider.

And so, he concentrated on the high quality of the grilled cheese that he was making his most favorite person in the world. He'd buttered the bread on both sides, not the healthiest thing to do, but it ensured that when he was done he had a perfectly golden sandwich on his plate.

Just as the sandwich was turning golden brown, he used the spatula to slide it onto a plate, filled a glass with water and walked back into the bedroom.

She was propped up in bed, watching an episode of _Friends_ when he re-entered the room. "This may be my best work," he gloated, handing her the plate and setting the glass on the bedside table.

He was trying to keep the air light, neither of them needed to deal with their real emotions right now.

"I guess I'll have to be the judge of that," she responded.

Tony snorted and then walked around to the other side of the bed and slipped his shoes off before flopping down next to her on his stomach. He reached his hand out until he could drape it around her waist and he pulled Ziva just a little bit closer so that he could feel her against him. He patted her hip a couple times before murmuring, "This is nice."

"What is nice?"

He turned his head to look up at her. She was still eating the grilled cheese; her eyes were still focused on the interaction of Ross and Rachel.

"Having you back in our bed and not a hospital bed."

She nodded and with a sharp intake of breath put the remaining pieces of crust back on the plate and set it on the ground. "You should go to sleep," she said, "You'll have to up early."

"I'm not going in to work until Friday," he said. She stared blankly at him so he elaborated. "I called Gibbs. You're on medical leave and I took some personal comp time."

"What did you tell Gibbs?" Her voice was shaky and she fiddled with her hands in her lap, refusing to meet his eyes.

"As little as I could."

"Which included?" she whispered.

He chose his words carefully, _painfully_ aware of how close to breaking she was. "The infection and its origin."

There was silence next to him for a few heartbeats and then the sheets ruffled and he felt the bed shift. He was ready for the cold shoulder, ready to be greeted by a sigh and the view of her tense and taught back, but then her face was peering at his. And so he reached over and drew his thumb down her cheek.

"Hi, _baby_," he whispered. He leaned over and kissed the trickle of water that was making its way down her cheek.

She sighed and he watched her wrestle with the idea of starting what he assumed would be an emotional conversation.

"I...I…need to tell you something." She finally admitted.

"What's that?" he ran his pinky down her cheek.

She got some of her pride back then and tried to dismiss him, shaking her head. She turned onto her back and tucked the pillow further under her head.

He couldn't let her get away with that, though. Between the two of them there was sea of emotion wider than the Atlantic Ocean and the only way that they were going to be able to get across it, was to talk. And, no, no it had never been something they liked to do or something that they were exceptionally talented at, but it _was_ necessary for survival.

"We have to talk, Ziva. We just have to."

She didn't turn back to him, but she opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. "Tony, I… I… what you said in the hospital…. Did you mean it?"

"When I said we'd be okay?" he asked, confused.

"No…when you referred to next time I … had a feeling."

"Oh." He said, remembering how the only thing he had asked of her in the hospital was to just tell him. He just wanted to _know_ next time she thought she was pregnant. "Yeah. Yeah. I meant that I'd want to know."

"So you want to have a baby with me?"

So that was what this was actually about. "Ziva," he smiled, turning so his body was slightly on top of hers. "I want to have a lot of things with you." He couldn't stop thinking of the contents of the VHS box in the bedside table, but now wasn't the time for that. He was beginning to wonder when the time would be. Tony didn't want her to think that he was only doing it in light of their recent circumstance, but the waiting was hard. He'd planned on taking her out Saturday – a nice restaurant, a romantic walk through the National Mall. They'd end up under the glow of the illuminated fountains of the World War II memorial and that's when he would ask. He would ask and she would say yes.

That had been the plan, but Tony was no stranger to the fact that plans always changed and that, especially with he and Ziva, life rarely followed the one they had laid out.

She nodded, running a hand through his hair and he sank back down beside her, arm still anchored around her waist.

She laughed, "I think the drugs are making me overly emotional."

"Would make sense," he agreed, though he couldn't say he minded too much, "They _are_ supposed to re-regulate your hormones."

"What time is it?" she sighed, lowering herself further into the bed.

"A bit after eight."

"I'm going to sleep before I have to take the next pill. Can you set an alarm for me?"

"I already have you covered, Sweetcheeks."

She smiled, pulling the covers over her body and then turned towards him. "Someday we'll be normal, yes?"

He shrugged. "Not at this rate, but… eh… That's okay."

* * *

_Six-Forty Eight, Thursday, September 29__th_

She'd been spending too much time with Tony, because as Ziva walked up to her car, all Rachel could think was that this was the only logical next scene in the movie her life currently occupied. She was about to step into the vehicle when she watched Ziva break from Tony's side and ask her to wait a second.  
She did, of course, because it's Ziva and they've been dancing around each other all day. For Rachel, it had been way too reminiscent of the way they'd avoided each other before Ziva had told her personally what had happened in Africa.

"I wanted to ask you something," Ziva began, "And… just know that it is not that I don't think you can handle yourself."

"Okay," Rachel drew out. She leaned against her driver's side door and rested her head against her hand.

"I'd like to go with you – to New York."

Rachel's gut unraveled as the words spilled from Ziva's mouth. So that _was_ what she wanted to talk to her about.

"Ziva…you don't have to do that," Rachel stammered.

"No, but I really would like to. There's no need for you to have to go alone. It's a long drive and you'll have a lot on your mind."

Rachel bit her lip as a smile came across her face. She didn't want to go alone, but it was something that she had to do for herself and she felt guilty dragging other people into it. If Ziva was offering though and wanted to spend that time with Rachel then, there was no reason for her to turn her down.

Ziva shifted on her feet at Rachel's silence and continued, "Plus, we haven't had any girl time in a while and I just thought –"

"I'd really appreciate it," she said.

"Then it's settled. You tell me when and I will be ready to go."

Rachel swayed on her feet – the reality of not having to go alone finally settling on her shoulders. "Any chance it'll be like our old weekend trips to the Delaware shore?"

"I don't see why it can't bear some resemblance."

Rachel nodded and then reached forward and pulled Ziva into a hug. She didn't know what she would do without her. The team had slowly become like family to her, but nothing would ever come close to what Ziva was to Rachel. She was everything wrapped up into one person – she was her best friend, the sister she never had and the last of a familiar past.

"Don't worry," Ziva said into her hair, running her hand up and down her back. "We'll figure it all out."

_Just Before Eight in the Morning, Saturday, October 1__st_

The days moved too fast and soon enough, Rachel found herself answering a knock on her front door. Ziva had arrived and it was time for them to get on the road and begin to make their way north. Rachel swore she felt like she was going to pass out.

She let Ziva inside with nothing more than a mumbled greeting and headed back to her bedroom to finish gathering things for her overnight bag.

She'd spent hours last night trying to figure out what to pack for clothes. She had no idea what she would want to wear when she saw her mother for the first time. Would she want to just be herself – in her favorite jeans and an old Georgetown sweatshirt – or would she want to look put together and powerful? She wasn't sure, so she packed everything she thought she could possibly need.

And then this morning she'd realized that she hadn't even packed any underwear. So after letting Ziva in, she shuffled back to her room, still dressed in her flannel pajamas and finished packing the things that she would actually need no matter what.

She was alone for a few minutes, but then Ziva appeared in her doorway, eyes carefully studying her every move.

"Almost ready?" she asked.

"Um…" Rachel paused and sank down on her bed. She looked at her overflowing duffle bag and her still undressed state. "Yeah." She said, "I think so."

Ziva pushed herself off of the doorway and made her way over to sit down beside Rachel on the bed. She pursed her lips. "If you want to go," she said, "then we should just go."

"Nothing good's going to happen," Rachel sighed, "You and I both know that." She felt like she was walking to her death. She was about to encounter a bunch of feelings that she'd once worked very hard to suppress. And she _had_ suppressed them, a long time ago. She'd been in high school when she'd finally put all of her _mommy issues_ to rest.

"We don't know anything for certain." Ziva said.

"I just want to be content like you are."

Ziva laughed, "Since when do you aspire to be like me?"

Rachel nudged her shoulder, "Come on… since like always. Since the day you stared me down in my father's office."

"I'm surprised that you remember that."

"I just mean that … look at you – you dealt with Eli and now you always look so light. It's like nothing can knock you over."

"Rach," Ziva chided. She shook her head. "My life isn't perfect by any means and I still have a very strained relationship with Eli that sometimes bothers me very much."

"Do you think that I should be going – should I subject myself to this?"

Ziva turned towards her and suddenly she saw Rachel as more of the little girl she'd always tried to protect instead of the woman she now considered very much her equal. "I think that if you don't confront your mother, it will eat away at you."

"It will," Rachel whispered.

"Okay, then," Ziva affirmed. She stood from beside Rachel and zippered her bag. "Let's go. We will go figure this out for you."

Rachel frowned. "I should probably put on different pants first though."

Ziva's eyes went wide. "I hadn't even noticed you were still in your pajamas."

"At least I showered last night," Rachel offered.  
"I guess."

Rachel laughed and moved over to her closest. She pulled off her pajamas pants and slipped on something more respectable. A few minutes later, her hair was brushed, she had a real shirt on and she'd even thrown on a pair of flats.

With that, Rachel found the courage to follow Ziva out of the room. She grabbed her purse and her keys, made sure that all of the lights in the house were turned off and then locked up her apartment.

* * *

**A/N2: Let me know what you thought!**  
**Cara**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

_Seven Twenty-Seven, Monday October 11__th_

The rising sun poking through the curtains woke Tony up the next morning. The realization that it was morning put him into a panic. He'd slept through two alarms, which meant that Ziva had missed two doses of her antibiotic. He mentally head slapped himself. He'd told Dr. Malrani that he could handle this, yet he'd slept through his first and really only responsibility.

There was a soft moan from the other end of the room and that's when he noticed that she wasn't still sleeping next to him. He got up from bed, reveling in how he _didn't_ feel one hundred years old after spending the night in an _actual_ bed, rather than a chair or a hospital bed that he wasn't supposed to be sharing with his girlfriend.

He found Ziva on the floor of the bathroom, hunched over the toilet bowl. When he creaked the door open, she turned her head towards him and regarded her boyfriend with weary eyes.

Tony sighed, kneeling down next her and pulling her hair back and out of her face.

"Sorry I slept through everything," he murmured.

She lurched again, her whole body convulsing as she emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet.

Though, that only consisted of water by now.

It took her a minute to control the gagging relax that her body now thought was normal. Her arms slipped from the top of the toilet and she fell flat against Tony's chest.

"They did not bother me until just now," she explained, eyes closed, mind focused totally on breathing and not throwing up again.

They stayed there on the floor in silence for a minute. Ziva didn't have the strength to do anything but concentrate on the slow and calming movement of Tony's fingers, gently running up and down her arm. He was lulling her back to sleep – something that she desperately needed.

Ziva had woken up to the first alarm and had simply taken the horse-sized pill and gone back to sleep. Four hours later, the alarm went off again and she repeated the routine. She sat up halfway, poured the pill from the bottle, choked it down with minimal water and then laid back down on the chest of her boyfriend, who, had she not been able to feel breathe, she would've sworn had slipped into some sleep deprived coma. The first time she had done this routine, Ziva had been asleep in minutes.

The second time, however, she wasn't quite as lucky.

The water hadn't settled well in her stomach and she'd felt a rush of nausea as she had lowered herself back onto the pillows. She'd closed her eyes and willed the nausea away. It was just a wave – it would pass.

And at first it seemed like it _had_ passed because after a few moments her stomach had settled and she'd faded back into the depths of unconsciousness.

Ziva had slept for almost two hours before she'd woken up in a cold sweat. She'd thrown the now damp blankets off of herself in one swift motion and it had been in that moment that she had realized her stomach was about to become the enemy.

She'd sat up slowly, not wanting to wake Tony. Carefully, she'd eased her way into the bathroom, still largely uneasy on her feet. She'd moved too slowly though because she suddenly found herself falling over the toilet in an effort not to hit the floor.

It was another ten minutes of throwing up and dry heaving before Tony woke up. Though she had originally not wanted to disturb him, Ziva wouldn't lie and say that she was disappointed when he creaked the door open. Something about his presence always made things just a little bit easier to handle.

That, and she wasn't sure that she'd be able to make it back to bed on her own.

"All done?" he asked. A few moments had passed without any movement from the woman currently leaning against his chest.

"For now," she grumbled.

He pushed himself off of the ground, easing her up with him and wrapped his arms around her torso, guiding her back to bed. She'd never felt her legs so heavy – it was like the gravitational pull on her towards the center of the earth had increased ten fold.

Once under the comforter, she settled back under his arm and closed her eyes – Ziva just wanted to sleep.

"Babe, you probably need some more food. That's what they said. Never an empty stomach."

She groaned.

"I'm going to go make you some toast,"

Her hand shot out then and latched around his waist, anchoring him to her side. "Stay." She whispered. "Few more minutes."

He sighed, not strong enough to resist her and slid further down into the mattress. "You make me irrational, Ziva David."

* * *

_Baltimore, Saturday, October 1__st_

Rachel had insisted on driving the first half of the trip – possibly more. She got so much solace on sticking her foot to the gas and commanding the wheel. That, and it was actually a bit too early to handle the driving skills of one Ziva David.

An hour in, just as they emerged from the depths of Baltimore Harbor Tunnel, Rachel sat back a bit in her seat and turned her head towards Ziva. "Tell me something happy." She said.

Ziva's eyebrows rose. "Something happy?" she asked.

"Yeah," Rachel said, "Tell me something like really great about your life."

"Hmm," Ziva sighed. "I do not know."

Rachel slapped the steering wheel. "That can't be true."

"Okay," Ziva drew out. She wasn't exactly sure why Rachel was asking this, but she had a feeling that it was something along the lines of distraction. "You're right, but this is a bit of a stretch and probably too much information."

"Try me."

"I got my period last month."

Rachel frowned. She wasn't sure how she was supposed to react to that statement. "Uh, congrats Ziva. I guess you're not knocked up."

"No, I'm not." Ziva said. She shifted in her seat – not that she would absolutely hate being _knocked up_ as Rachel had said. "But… I um haven't had my period since before…"  
"Oh." Rachel's eyes went wide. She suddenly understood. "Ziva! That's great!"

"Yes," she stammered. "It is. I … it makes me feel like I can finally put it all behind me."

"You've done so well," Rachel said. She couldn't help but think of all her friend had been through in the last few months. "Considering all that you've been through in the last few months, I mean, Ziva you're _unbelievable_."

"I'm starting to finally relax."

Rachel reached over and squeezed Ziva's hand. "You _should_ relax. Just be happy with Tony."

Ziva smiled and the light traveled all the way up to her eyes. It was something Rachel once worried she might never see again. "Do you remember the first time you told me that I needed to tell Tony how I felt?" she asked.

Rachel laughed. "Of course I do!" She exclaimed. She paused. "I'm just trying to remember which time that was…"

"Very funny." Ziva said.

"Wait, I got it." The girl raised her eyebrows at her friend. "It was the fourth of July – the summer of before my junior year. We were at the beach and you said that you didn't know how much longer you'd be able to spend with him without totally losing yourself and _I_ said, 'why don't you just lose yourself and tell him you love.'"

"Looks like you _do_ remember."

"Yup." Rachel smiled, "Though that was only the beginning."

"Well, I never forgot what you said about losing myself and I think I finally have and it is…oddly comforting."

Rachel groaned. "I need that."

Ziva swatted her arm. "You are only twenty-three. You have plenty of time."

"I know. I know." Rachel sighed. "But, you know me, I'm more suited for the couple's lifestyle. Plus, like, my best friend is five years older than me and practically married, who am I going to go to the bar with or God forbid a club?"

"Maybe you should reconnect with your Georgetown friends."

Rachel laughed. "Like who?" She couldn't help but roll her eyes at the idea of it.

Ziva searched her brain for the few friends that Rachel had kept some type of connection with since graduation. "Did Angela go to California?"

"Yes," Rachel said. She smiled at the picture of her ditsy friend doing commuter programming at Google. "She's probably the hottest and only blonde programmer that Google has."

"I thought you said she was going to grad school."  
"That too."

Ziva thought for a moment and then remember another friend. "What about Jess?" She was the only one of Rachel's college friends that she'd been introduced to, rather than met on accident. Ziva thought she'd been a nursing major – one of Rachel's suitemates from her junior year. She'd seemed sweet and innocent.

"Jessica Le?" Rachel asked.

"Yes, is she still in the city?"

"I think so," Rachel said. "Pretty sure she was hired by Children's National Medical Center."

"You should call her. Reconnect."

Rachel sighed. She tucked a hair behind her ear. "Yeah, maybe you're right."

"I just worry about you. You had so many friends in the beginning of college and then they just all faded away."

"Well, I mean, what was I supposed to do? I thought the CIA was my calling so I dropped everything for it. I don't know how to get it them back…"

"You're out now, so you can explain everything to people now…If that's what you want."

"What about the part where the director is my father, yet he totally screwed me over which left me running to get a job by way of my non-biological sister?"

Ziva ran a hand through her hair, "Well, that sounds like you had a rough time, but have it all together now."

Rachel groaned, sinking further into her seat and merging into the fast lane. "I don't think I want to get into it with people."

"Then don't get into it. Say that it is complicated, but that you are doing quite well now."

Rachel raised her eyebrows, "sounds awkward."

"I'm sure you can manage."

* * *

_Four Fifteen, Monday, October 11__th_

Rachel used her key to let herself into Tony and Ziva's apartment late Monday afternoon. They'd arrested a suspect earlier in the day and Gibbs had let her go early. He'd seemed to know that something bigger than what Tony had told him was going on. He didn't ask or say anything, but Rachel could see it in his eyes. He knew that this was something big, maybe he even knew what had happened or had an idea.

Gibbs always knew.

Normally, Rachel wouldn't just let herself into their apartment. She was, frankly, terrified of walking in on them in a compromised position. Today, though, that fear was dormant somewhere deep inside of her.

"Anybody home?" she asked. She pulled the key out of the lock and shut the door behind her.

"I'm in here."

Rachel followed Ziva's voice into the family room and found her laying on the couch, blanket draped around her – book in hand. She looked like she'd recently taken a shower. There was more color in her face than there had been in the hospital, but she still looked both emotionally and physically exhausted.

"Well, don't you look… clean?"

Ziva chuckled wearily. "That's all you could come up with it?"

Rachel scratched her head, "Yeah…" she sighed, "Sorry – I mean, you do look better than Saturday, but still a bit gray and … tired."

"At least you tell me the truth… unlike Tony."

Rachel laughed and picked up the bag of magazines she'd brought over. "I don't think Tony's lying," she said, moving into the kitchen to leave them on the counter. "He's so madly in love with you that he doesn't know how to think you're anything but drop dead gorgeous."

"You are just awful." Ziva called.

Rachel walked back in the living room, biting into an apple. "Oh, please, you know I'm right," she laughed. She grabbed the ottoman from the leather chair and dragged it closer to the couch. She stared at Ziva for a moment. "So how are you?"

Ziva turned her head at her friend and narrowed her eyes. "What did Tony tell you?" she asked.

"That he would be heading to the grocery store around now and that you could use some girl time."

"Is that all?"

"That's all," she insisted, "But I'm a bit insulted that you think I need a detailed report from Tony to be able to have a meaningful conversation with you."

"I never said that."

"Mhmm," Rachel hummed. She put her feet up on the end of the couch and leaned back on the ottoman. "So, really, Ziva, how are you doing?"

"It's difficult. I do not know which thing to be upset about so I just ignore everything."

"Denial?"

"Is that what it's called?" Ziva asked.

"I'm no psychologist but sounds like it… I mean… if that's what you have to do then, that's what you have to do."

Ziva nodded and the two plunged into silence for a moment. Rachel didn't know what else to say to Ziva. She knew that she was in pain. She was hurting physically and then she had to deal with the multitude of emotional consequences that accompanied this newest event in her life.

"Rachel?" she asked. "Did you know that Tony wants to have kids with me?"

Rachel opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. Her most truthful answer would be that, though Tony hadn't explicitly told her that, she did know that he wanted to marry her – Rachel's mind drifted to the conversation she and Tony had had in Ziva's kitchen – and with that she expected that they'd start a family. Going into that, though, didn't seem necessary right now. "I mean, I could've probably guessed," was what she settled on.

"It is that obvious?" Ziva asked.

"That he loves you or that he wants you to mother his children?"

"Both?" Ziva responded.

"Yes," Rachel said emphatically, "Ziva, it is. Don't you guys talk about the future?"

"I think that Tony would like to, but I am scared that he will reconsider."

"Ziva," Rachel sighed, hand coming up to rub her forehead. "I feel like when life is just a little bit smoother, you don't question him this much. You're just scared, Ziva."

"I know I shouldn't be so worried about what I say to Tony, but I just feel so emotional."

Rachel smiled, "I think it's probably those drugs you're on."

"You're sounding like Tony again," Ziva chided.

"Maybe he's sounding like me." Rachel shot back.

Ziva nodded before closing her eyes and groaning. Another wave of nausea was beginning to come over her. She took slow deep breaths and tried to keep it under control. Ziva hadn't thrown up the toast that Tony had made her earlier and she was hopping not throw up the crackers he'd watched her eat before he'd made a run for more bread, crackers and rice.

"What's wrong?" Rachel asked. She gotten up from her place on the floor and was now peering over her friend.

"The drugs make me sick," Ziva whispered, "I'm trying to keep the nausea away."

"I can help you in the bathroom, you know."

Ziva shook her head, eyes still closed. "The hospital gave me a…pink –" She started to lose the battle with her stomach and simply croaked, "bedroom."

Rachel nodded and rushed into Tony and Ziva's bedroom where she found a pink, hospital issued plastic bucket. She grabbed it off the edge of the bed and raced back into the family room. Ziva was now sitting up on the couch with her hand over mouth. Rachel shoved the bucket under Ziva's chin and watched as her friend heaved and heaved, ridding her body of the little food that was left inside of it.

Rachel gently tucked some wayward strands of hair behind her ear and held a hand on her shoulder. She had taken care of sick friends before, but usually they were her drunken Georgetown friends, needing to get the unsettling amounts of alcohol out of their system. This was different.

She rubbed her hand across Ziva's shoulder blades. "Okay, you're okay." She said, "You're okay." And Ziva probably knew that, but Rachel needed to hear it.

* * *

**A/N: We're about to delve back into some of Rachel's specific histories so if I anyone has any questions about when things occurred or who people are, feel free to ask in the comments or send me a PM.**

**As always, thank you so much for your continued readership and I would quite love a review. **


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Again, thank you so much for the guest reviews and all the reviews and follows. They mean so much.**

**Sorry if the formatting is a bit off. The site is being a bit odd with doc loading**

* * *

**Chapter Fourteen**

_Five of Five, Monday, October 11__th_

Tony didn't spend long at the grocery store. He was much more focused than he usually would be – getting in, getting the things on his list and then getting out and back to Ziva.

He unlocked the apartment door, thinking it would lead him to the unrelenting chatter of two best friends. He'd only gone to the store because he knew Rachel was coming by. They got alone time and he didn't feel too bad leaving Ziva alone.

When he didn't hear them talking he got a little nervous.

"Ziva?" he called.

He stepped into the living room and found Rachel sitting on the floor below Ziva's head. She held a finger to her lips and shushed him.

"She just fell asleep," she explained in a whisper, "She threw up for like twenty minutes."

Tony groaned, "Sorry I wasn't here." Evidently she hadn't been able to keep those crackers down like they'd hoped.

"No," Rachel shook her head, "I mean, I want to help and she would do the same – _more_ – for me."

He chuckled. "Yes, she most certainly would." He wasn't sure that there was anyone in the world that Ziva loved more than Rachel.

Tony picked the bags up from by the front door and brought them into the kitchen. He unloaded them and then came back and joined Rachel on the floor.

His heart ached a bit more than it had been already as he took a mental survey of Ziva's physical state. She was shivering in a cold sweat again even though there was a blanket pulled all the way up to her chin and she just looked so small and it hurt because he knew that this – her pain and all the misery she was going through was a means to end – that those terrible drugs were actually helping her – but he would never be able to understand why she had to have so much pain in her life.

He had to fight the urge to reach up and brush his hand down her side.

Rachel's voice drew him from his thoughts, "I think this is hurting you more than her," she observed.

And he knew that she _knew_ the opposite to be true because if Ziva was crumbling to anyone right now – it was Rachel. It hurt him that she was trying to protect him from her pain and their collective pain, but he understood, nonetheless.

"Nice try," he chuckled, "But yeah, this is excruciating to watch. Between her blaming herself for losing the baby, all the discomfort she endured in the hospital and now this, I'm having a hard time thinking I could handle anything else or that anything else could go wrong. I mean, you and I both know that more things could go wrong, but I really can't handle that idea right now."

"You're putting on a good front for her, though. It's admirable."

"It's the least she deserves," he sighed, looked down and then slowly looked back up and locked eyes with Rachel, "You know, I was at the grocery store and I somehow, accidently stumbled down like the baby food aisle and…." He inhaled and pursed his lips, "I just realized how sad I am that Zi and I were having a baby and now we're not." He looked over at her and then back at Rachel. "You know, she'd be the most incredible mother."

"She still will be," Rachel spoke quietly.

"I know." His voice choked as the last of the sound came out. "I know," he repeated.

"I guess it just wasn't meant to be right now," Rachel said. "But I firmly believe that it is meant to be at some time."

Tony nodded, taking her thoughts and the pair went silent for a moment. Rachel was right – maybe it just wasn't their time, but at some point it would be. At some point he'd walk down that aisle and have to buy things. Just not right now.

"What I hate the most about all of this," Tony began, crossing his arms over his chest, "I hate all of this, but the worst part is…it makes her so afraid. She starts to just tip-toe around life. She's afraid to say things to me and then when I went to the store, I saw her slip one of her big knives under the couch cushion." He shook his head. "Fucking, Eli."

Rachel didn't know _what_ to say. She knew that he just needed to vent and that she didn't really _need_ to say anything, but she wished that she could make at least a fraction of this easier for them.

"I should probably be more respectful of the guy," Tony continued, "I mean I'm going to be related to him soon, but still, even more then, I don't think I'd ever be able to like the guy."

Rachel tuned back into his monologue as he came to the end, his last sentence getting her attention. "What do you mean?" She asked.

"I mean he just cares so little about the residual eff -,"

"No, no," she shook her head, "_Related to him soon_."

"Oh." He stooped. He pursed his lips again, thought about cluing Rachel in and what that would mean, "I had kind of forgot that I was talking out loud," he explained. He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. Tony looked up and watched Ziva's chest rise and fall, her eyes fluttering behind the lids – she was sound asleep. "I bought her a ring."

Rachel's mouth dropped, "A ring?"

"I was supposed to do it Saturday."

Rachel nodded and opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before saying, "_it_ as in get down on one knee and propose to her? _It_ as in marriage?"

He smiled, "Yup."

"That's the…the single best thing I've heard in awhile," she stammered. She got off the floors and scooted on her knees to wrap him in the tightest hug she'd ever given him. After a moment, she pulled back and smiled, "so when are you going to do it now?"

He sighed and so she moved back to give him some space. "I don't know, honestly. I don't want to do right now, because I don't want her to think I'm only doing it because of what we're going through now – because we're scared."

"So you're going to wait a while?" she asked.

"Not too long, sooner or later she'll probably discover it or I won't be able to wait any longer."

"Well, either way, I'm thrilled for you two. Like _beyond_ thrilled."

"Thanks, Rach, your blessing and approval have always been important."

"I don't know about that," she said.

"No, really." He pressed. "From the day we met, I could tell how important you were to Ziva and then later, how important she is to you. You're pretty much her only family around here and definitely some of the only family that's never wronged – so, yes, Rachel, your approval and blessing are very important."

Rachel bit her lip. "Consider it approved." She smiled and rested her chin on her clasped hands. Some things were going right in the world after all.

They elapsed into contented silence again and then Tony shifted on the ground and turned himself fully to face Rachel.

"How are you holding up?" he asked, "No one's forgotten about you."

Rachel looked up, momentarily startled by the question. She was actually hoping they had forgotten, because she was certainly trying to.

She took a deep breath and chose her words carefully. "I'm chugging along. Victoria wasn't someone I had before so I can continue without her. You all are more than enough. I am sure that Jacob would be disappointed in me for getting my hopes up, but it was something I felt I needed to do."

"Did you get any…closure?" Tony asked.

"Maybe not closure, exactly, but I think I know that I did not lose too much in not having her around. She would not have been what I needed, I don't think."

"I know you were realistic when you decided you wanted to meet her, but I'm still sorry that it wasn't the fairy tale that we all hoped for."

"Me too," she said and Tony thought he may have seen a faint glistening in the corners of her eyes.

"But Rach," he said, "I think it was brave. Going was so brave, Rachel."

"Thanks," she whispered.

The next few days continued in much of the same fashion. Ziva would have a couple of good hours, sometimes totaling more than an a handful and then the drugs or the food that she had tried to use to settle her stomach would come back to bite her and she'd be down for what felt like hours – retching and retching.

Tuesday night was sleepless for Tony and Ziva. Ziva had fallen asleep on the couch around nine and Tony had decided not to disturb her so he left her there for quite awhile. Sometime past midnight, he rubbed her shoulder to try to convince her to come to bed. Too tired and too weak to move, she shook her head and so he picked her up and carried her down the hallway and placed her on her side of the bed.

The movement must have upset something inside her because less than an hour later she awoke with a start and stumbled across the room and into the bathroom. She threw up for almost an hour and there were points where Tony thought about bringing her to the emergency room. She'd calmed down around then, though and her face had paled when he'd suggested they take a ride to Bethesda and make sure she was okay. Tears formed in her eyes as she whispered her desire to just go back to bed.

Ziva wasn't dumb and so he helped her back to her feet and they went back to bed.

Not long after that, he woke up to find her sitting up next to him, shaking and rubbing her forehead.

"You okay?" he asked. He pushed himself up and pressed a palm to her forehead. "You're hot." He noticed.

"I have the worst headache," she sighed.

"You're dehydrated," he said, getting up from the bed and heading into the kitchen. He filled a cup with water and pulled a bottle of Gatorade from the fridge. He came back into the bedroom and unscrewed the bottle, handing it her. She nodded and he watched her take small sip after small sip.

He was probably the worst caretaker ever. She'd thrown up for nearly an hour – of course she was dehydrated. He'd learned that in college. He rubbed his eyes and sighed. If he couldn't watch out for Ziva, how was he going to take care of their future child that he seemed to want so badly?

She finished the purple Gatorade and he took the empty bottle from her and exchanged it with the glass of water.

"Some nurse I am, huh?" He perched himself on the edge of the bed and lightly laid his head on her shoulder, careful not to put too much weight on her.

"I should be perfectly capable of taking care of myself. It is not your fault."

He looked up at her and tucked some wayward pieces of hair back behind her ear. "You're gorgeous, you know that?"

"Tony…" she rolled her eyes.

"Really." He said, "I haven't told you that in a couple days – you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Always have been."

"Thank you." She whispered, "Though, I'm not sure how you still think that."

"Well, I do." He kissed her temple and then pulled the empty glass from her hands. "I'm going to go fill this up again."

A few minutes later, they were snuggled back under the comforter together. Ziva turned under Tony's arm and laid her face against his chest. She took a deep breath and tried to take comfort in his familiarity.

Morning came not too long after that and Ziva groaned as she began to dress for leaving the apartment for the first time in days. She felt physically ill when she thought about having to go to the doctors. She took her time as she showered and got dressed, secretly hoping that maybe, just maybe Tony would forget and they would miss the appointment.

That wasn't the case, though and soon he appeared in the bathroom doorway as she was blow-drying her hair. He smiled at her as he sidled up next to her and she was sad because, under other circumstances, that smile, his smile, would have instantly, even if just for a minute, washed all of her fear and pain away, but it didn't this time. The idea of going back to the doctor's office made her skin crawl – it made a cold shiver slide all the way up her back. She knew that it was irrational, but every time they examined her, she was back in the desert. She was back in the desert and, no matter who was holding her hand – she was alone.

She ran a hand through her hair, hopping that she would be able to find a wet spot or two, but it was unnaturally dry and so she turned the machine off and unplugged it.

"You almost ready to go?" he asked, tone simple, as if they were heading out to grab a bite to eat.

"Uh," she paused, "Almost."

"It's going to be okay," he said.

She nodded, tight lipped and eyes downcast. If it was only that easy. "I will be … better when it is over."

"How do you feel right now?" He asked.

She sighed. "I am very nauseous, but…" she clicked off the bathroom light and padded into the bedroom. "I don't know if it is because I am going to be sick again or if it is because I am nervous." She reached down to the floor and slipped on her shoes.

"Well," he said, "We'll just go and get it over with then."

* * *

_New Jersey Turnpike, Saturday, October 1__st_

A small scuffle had ensued when Rachel had refused to give Ziva the keys at the designated rest stop swap. They'd come back from the bathroom and a coffee run and they'd both approached the driver's side door.

"My turn to drive?" Ziva had asked.

Rachel had scratched the side of her head and then shook her head, "I don't think so."

"Rachel, come on. It'll give you a break – a time to relax."

"I don't want to relax," Rachel said, her eyes bleak. "I want to drive and get there and then just figure it out as I go."

And so Ziva had let her drive. They'd sped back onto the highway and after a few minutes, Rachel had rolled the windows down and turned the radio up.

_She'd been the last one to leave the dorm. Rachel's roommates had left yesterday morning, opting to skip their morning classes in favor of getting home for Thanksgiving break just a little bit earlier._

_Rachel, on the other hand, had no desire to leave until she was forced too. She'd taken a taxi home. The drive was only fifteen minutes, no more than five miles, but her father didn't have the time to take out of work to pick up his daughter from college._

_She hadn't expected him anyway._

_Any semblance of a relationship that they had pretended to have, had evaporated when Jacob was killed. It had been almost a year now – coming up on nine months to the day that she'd opened her front door to two Chaplins. She had been home alone. Eric was working late, yet again and she'd just been doing some homework in the living room. Nothing too taxing - it was second semester senior year and she'd already been accepted to Georgetown. She hadn't remembered what they'd said, but the silent memory was still painful enough. That night, after she'd told her father what they'd said, he had never looked at her the same again. She never looked at him that same way after that either. _

_Rachel stepped out of the taxi and slung her duffle bag over her shoulder. She paid the taxi driver and headed up the front steps. She hadn't really missed this place. It didn't hold the plethora of good childhood memories that many of her friend's houses held. It was just a building – a large and cold house that had been too quiet since Jacob had left and now forever would be._

_She unlocked the front door and headed up the stairs, entering her bedroom. It was the only room in the house that she marginally liked. Dumping her back on the floor, she flipped her desk lab on and pulled her laptop out of her backpack._

_Rachel curled up in her desk chair and waited for her email to load. It did and with a bing, a new email from Ziva popped up. She smiled and opened it._

_Hi Rachel,_

_I hope you are enjoying your Thanksgiving break – have you found a way to spend the whole vacation in the dorm? Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I arrived home from a mission a few days early and will be relaxing in my apartment for the next few days. Feel free to give me a call if you would like to talk._

_-Ziva_

_Rachel bolted out of her chair and grabbed her cell phone. Eric was too wrapped up in himself to even remotely care about the expense of Rachel's fairly regular long distance phone calls._

_Ziva picked up the phone on the second ring and Rachel smiled, flopping down on her bed._

_"It's me," she said._

_"Hello, Rachel." Rachel swore she could hear the look on her friend's face – the way she would regard her with such fondness and care._

_"Back so soon?" Rachel asked._

_"It was a…clean mission." Ziva said._

_Rachel nodded, not that Ziva could see her and then bit her lip, before taking the proverbial jump. "So, I was thinking…maybe I could come visit over winter break."_

_"Rachel," Ziva sighed, "I don't know if that is –"_

_"Come on, Ziva," Rachel whined, "It would be fun, wouldn't it?"_

_"Rachel, it would be a lot of fun, but I don't know where I'll be in a month, you know that."_

_"I know, but I was thinking you could take some time off."_

_"Rach, it doesn't work that, you know that too."_

_"I know." Rachel sighed. She rubbed her eyes. "Sometimes I wish it did, though."_

_"If it didn't work this way, we may not know each other."_

_Rachel sighed again, "I know, I know." Though that only served as consolation five out of seven days of the week._

* * *

_Just outside New York City, Saturday October 1__st_

As they drove through New York City, traffic began to slow and Rachel foot alternated between the gas and the break, but more often the break. She had a headache. The country music had long been abandoned in favor of companionable silence.

Rachel rubbed her eyes and turned to Ziva. She sighed. She knew that Ziva had noticed the gradual slump in her shoulders as they'd continued north. She knew that Ziva knew that reality was finally setting and she was terrified.

Another mile or so later, Rachel pulled into a small rest stop. She pulled into the first open parking spot and cut the ignition off. She rested her head against the steering wheel for a moment and closed her eyes.

What had she gotten herself into? All she wanted right now was her bed. Maybe this was all just a bit too much for her.

Ziva's hand reached over and landed on her back. She didn't moved, didn't rub circles, she just stayed there. And that was how Rachel broke. She opened her eyes and leaned across the seats so that her head lay in Ziva's lap and let the tears of fear and confusion and exhaustion flow from her eyes.

Ziva placed her hand on Rachel's shoulder. "Do you want to turn around?" she asked.

"I wish it were that easy." Rachel grumbled.

"I know," Ziva sighed. She squeezed her shoulder.

"Can you drive now?"

"Mhmm," Ziva nodded, but Rachel made no move to sit up from her lap and Ziva wasn't going to force her. She looked at her.

"In a minute."

Ziva ran her fingers through Rachel's hair for a while and she was almost certain that she was going to fall asleep.

She didn't though and a few minutes later, Rachel pushed herself up, wiped her eyes and slid between the seats to the backbench.

Ziva took that as notice to slide herself into the driver's seat. She turned the car back on and pulled out of the space and back onto the highway.

Rachel, in turn, fastened her seat belt and twisted to put her feet up. She put her head against the window and closed her eyes. A nap would help her headache.

* * *

**As always, thoughts are so appreciated.**

**Cara**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Thank you so much for all the new guest reviews that I've been getting. I so wish that I could message you back and say thank you, but I guess here will have to suffice. So - thank you so much for reading and reviewing. **

* * *

**Chapter Fifteen**

_Just outside New York City, Saturday October 1__st_

Ziva watched through the rear view mirror as Rachel slid further down in the seat and dozed somewhere between sleep and awake. She looked much younger than the twenty-two year old woman that she was. Rather, she was more reminiscent of the confused seventeen-year-old girl who had just lost her brother.

Ziva had called Rachel once she'd heard that Jacob had been killed during his tour of duty. She had been on assignment with Jenny Shepard in Cairo. It was then that the bond of trust had been forced between the two women, not only because Ziva had saved Jenny's life, but more because just as the mission had wrapped, Ziva had realized that Rachel wasn't handling Jacob's death as well as she'd originally thought, she'd left early from Cairo and gotten a flight to DC, but only with Jenny's help.

_Ziva had never experienced spring in the United States. At twenty-one years old, it was only her fourth or fifth time in the country and her first time on personal business rather than a Mossad assignment or accompanying her father. _

_She strode out of the airport, taking in the lack of security not only on the inside, but on the street as well, and hailed a cab. She read the man Rachel's address and then watched as America's capital moved by her windows. _

_She could never imagine having to spend an extended amount of time here. Sure, it was nice – green grass, flowering trees and the Potomac running through, but despite the fact that she knew it had been modeled after cities like Paris and Rome – it lacked the history and character that she felt European cities had. Ziva also thought it lack the resilience and blatant will to survive that cities in Israel had. There were few battle marks in Washington, DC – no buildings being refurbished after a bombing like those in Tel Aviv, no sea walls with holes in them like those in Haifa. All in all, she found Washington quite boring. If it hadn't held Rachel, she assumed she'd never visit for personal reasons in all her life. _

_The car pulled into a long and stone lined driveway that gave way to old Tudor home. Vines twined along the windows and hung above the door. She paid the man and pulled her backpack out the door with her. _

_Ziva rang the front door bell twice with no answer. She looked at her watch. It was half past four – well enough towards the time that Rachel should be home from school. She thought about picking the lock and letting herself inside, but if there was any place that she should repress her Mossad training – it was at the home of the American director of the CIA. _

_Instead of breaking into the house, she followed the pathway around to the side yard and hopped the fence. Landing on the ground, she caught sight of Rachel – curled in a lounge chair by the pool. _

_Ziva thought about calling her name as she walked over, but it had been so long since she'd seen her friend and she just looked so different than she had three years. _

_Three years ago, just before Ziva had joined the IDF, Rachel had accompanied her father on a visit to Israel. The two had spent three days in Tel Aviv together and Rachel had been young, happy and as naïve as someone could be when their father headed an intelligence agency. Now, she looked as if the weight of the world had landed on her shoulders. _

"_Rachel," Ziva spoke, suddenly realizing that she was merely feet away. _

_Rachel startled, breaking from her trance and turned to look at Ziva, eyes wide and wet. "What…what are you doing here?" _

_Ziva sat down at the foot of the lounge chair. "I had some…time. I wanted to check on you." _

_Rachel stared at her, not knowing what to say. Her brain hadn't even fully registered Ziva's presence. _

"_So," Rachel asked, pushing herself up in the chair, "You're not here on assignment?" _

"_No." _

"_You just came to see me?" _

"_Yes." _

_Rachel leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Ziva's waist, burying her head in her lap. This was the only person who she knew understood exactly what she was feeling. "He's gone, Ziva. He's not coming back. Ever."  
Ziva ran her fingers through Rachel's hair as the girl began to cry. "I know." She said. She knew that all too well. _

"_Eric hasn't talked to me in a week. It's like I'm worthless, now." _

_Ziva's arms tightened around her. "You are not worthless. Do not ever think that." _

"_He was all I had. I'm all alone, now." _

"_Rachel," she whispered. "You will always have me – if that is any consolation." _

Ziva's eyes moved back to the road as she merged into the far left lane. As they'd driven north, she'd become more and more nervous for Rachel to see her mother. Like herself, she'd been let down by so many people in her life. Did she really need another?

She reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. She dialed the first speed dial.

"Hey," Tony answer on the third ring.

"Hi."

"Where are you guys?" he asked.

"Ten miles north of New York City."

"Everything okay?" he asked. He sensed the pensiveness of her words.

"Rachel is sleeping. She is nervous. I am nervous."

"It'll be fine," he said. "Maybe Rach was told the wrong story all her life. Maybe she wasn't. Either way, knowing will either help her or hurt her and if it hurts her, we'll help her move on."

"You sound so sure." She breathed.

"Well, look who she's got with her right now."

* * *

_Ten Forty-Five in the Morning, Wednesday October 13__th_

Ziva finished filling out her preliminary paperwork and tucked the pen back in the clipboard. She tried not to notice how her handwriting was messier than normal – a side effect of her incessant shaking.

Ziva rose to her feet and walked the clipboard back up to the receptionist.

"Thank you, Ms. David." She smiled. The girl reviewed the paperwork, ensuring that Ziva had filled in all the necessary lines. She looked back up. "You're all set. A nurse will take you back in just a minute."

Ziva nodded and returned to her seat next to Tony. Settling back into the minimally padded waiting chair, she looked around the room. It wasn't busy; most of the blue seats were empty. There was expectant couple sitting at the other end of the same row as she and Tony, and a couple of women sitting alone, staggered throughout the rest of the room. Ziva was sure that none of them looked half as frightened as she felt.

She tried to rest her hands in her lap, but she fidgeted. She picked at her nails, carefully examining her cuticles.

"Easy there," Tony whispered. He reached over and pulled her right hand from her lap and laced his fingers through hers. He rubbed his thumb back and fourth. "My first year at NCIS," he began, leaning into her so he could speak quietly, "I spent two weeks with a Marine family as their protection detail. Thought the mother was being targeted by the mob, anyway, the kids' grandfather was always around and he used to say that 'ninety-nine percent of the things we worry about are never as bad as we imagine them to be.'"

He looked at her and she knew that he was hoping for some kind of recognition of his statement, a moment of understanding where the weight could be lifted from her shoulders, but she didn't have anything to give, so she just nodded, her eyes filled with tears waiting to be brought to the surface. She couldn't fathom how this couldn't be a bad as she was imagining it.

"You're going to wait out here." It was more of a resignation than a question.

"Is that what you want me to do?" He asked.

She shrugged. "I mean… I do not know. Its up to you."

"Ziva," he whispered.

She looked up at him, eyes all wide and scared. "I'd like for you to… come and hold my hand."

"Ziva David?" A nurse called from the other end of the waiting room.

She felt Tony squeeze her hand again and then let go and as she stood up from her seat, she was almost sure that he wasn't going to follow her and she didn't want to know why – she knew she couldn't handle it right now and so she just walked, as normal as she possibly could, towards the middle-aged nurse waiting by the door. The nurse paused a beat and a half, smiled, and then opened the door that led to the exam rooms and that was when Ziva felt a hand against the small of her back that never went away as they walked down the linoleum tiled hallway. She let something small uncoil within her – he wasn't going to leave her alone, not now – not ever.

Tony and Ziva were led to the last room on the corner and the nurse pulled new paper across the exam table.

"If you could just have a seat up here," she said, she moved to the counter across the small room and opened a cabinet. Looking up, the nurse noticed Tony standing awkwardly in the doorway, Ziva's bag hanging limp in his hand. "And you, sir, can have a seat in one of those chairs," she motioned to the two next to the table "or stand by the window, but I think our friend here will appreciate being able to shut the door, don't you think?"

He nodded, "Right, sorry." Tony entered the room, closing the door behind him and made his way across the room.

"Don't you worry, hun, I can tell we're all a bit nervous. It's okay. Deep breath you two."

Tony sat down in the chair closest to Ziva and, after placing her bag and their coats on the opposite chair; he reached over and offered her his hand. She took a deep breath, her hands still shaking and let him hold onto her.

"Alright," the nurse turned around, carrying a thermometer and a couple of empty vials. "I just need to take your temperature and get a few samples of blood. Have you had a lot to eat today?"

"Enough." Ziva responded.

"By no means a lot," Tony cut in, "The antibiotics make her really sick."

"Okay, understandable. Why don't you lay back then? We don't want you passing out on us." She dragged the thermometer across Ziva's forehead and then motioned for her to move back.

Slowly, Ziva slid back on the raised headboard, until she could lay down against the back pad, her hand now out of Tony's reach.

The nurse busied herself with looking for Ziva's veins and once she found them, she stuck Ziva with the needle and began taking the four vials that would be tested to ensure that the high-test antibiotics had succeeded in ridding her body of the bacterial infection.

Ziva had closed her eyes as soon as she had lain back against the table. This was all just too uncomfortable for her, but when she had felt the needle prick her skin, her eyes had flown open, surprised and momentarily back in Somalia, being filled with truth serum. _Tell me everything you know about NCIS._

She didn't want to alarm anyone, especially the nurse, so she quickly screwed her eyes shut again. It would be over soon; she just had to breathe.

Tony hadn't missed the panic wash across her face though, because she heard him quietly push himself out of his chair and slowly make his way up to her head. And then his hand found its way to her hairline and once again she was anchored to the present reality.

The nurse unscrewed the fourth vial and then popped the needle from Ziva's forearm. "Perfect," she said, "Do me a favor and sit up real slowly and let someone know if at any point you're going to pass out or be sick. Okay? It happens all the time."

"Okay," Ziva murmured and let Tony help her back up.

"And before Dr. Blair comes in if you could put one of these on," she handed Ziva a white hospital gown, "Everything goes below the waist. Do you need anything else before I leave you to change?"

She shook her head in response, the words _everything goes_ still ringing loudly in her head.

She waited for the nurse to leave before gripping her hands against the table and hanging her head low as her breathing escalated and her shoulders began to shake as a small panic attack came over her.

Tony knelt in front of her, his hands landing on her knees. "Ziva," he said, "Ziva, look at me." Her quick and shallow breaths continued as he reached up and brushed a hand through her hair and down her face. "Come on, Ziva. Look at me."

"I can't do it. I can't take off my clothes," she shuddered.

He swallowed, because he had no idea how to respond to that and he needed a minute to gather his thoughts so that he could figure out exactly what she needed him to say.

What was he supposed to say to that? She was so scared – scared and confused, mind darting from the past to the present and probably the possible future. Sometimes, when she was scared, he thought she said irrational things, but there was nothing irrational about her wanting to stay clothed. He was too keenly aware of the memories that could resurface.

Unfortunately though, this was something that, for the sake of her health, needed to happen.

"No one is going to hurt you." He said. "It's just Dr. Blair."

"I know. I know." She nodded. She looked up at him. "It was just the way she said it… as if you can just tell someone to take their clothes off on a whim. I… you would never say that."

"I know," he assured, running a finger through her hair and tucking it behind her ear, "But that's because I know you, right? That nurse doesn't know anything. All her job is to walk us to the room, take your temperature, take some blood and hand you a gown. She sees you're being examined and that just what she says."

She nodded – she shook her head furiously, trying so hard to believe him, but still shaking out of fear. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

In another circumstance, he would have sat her down, let her talk and _really_ talk. And he knew that they would go down that certain path that made his blood boil and his stomach churn, but he knew that it was often a path that she needed them to go down. Walking that path with him at her side, promising her that he was there was one way that he _knew_ she healed by.

He couldn't take her down that long path though, not in the gynecologist's office – not when Dr. Blair was about to walk in. That would have to wait until later.

He stood up, placing a hand on the side of her head and pressing a kiss to her temple. "No one's going to hurt you, baby. _No one_." He reassured. "And even if they tried, I'm right here. _Right here, Zi_. I'm not going to let go of you."

He reached out and pulled the gown from her hands. She'd been clutching it since the nurse handed it to her. He unfolded it and held it open to her. Tony waited as Ziva stared at the gown for a few seconds and then slowly slid her arms through the sleeve. She rose to her feet and he reached behind her and tightly tied each of the two securements. And then much like he'd done a few days earlier, he waited for her to unbutton her pants and slide them, along with her underwear, out from below the gown. He picked the clothes of the ground as she stepped out of them and folded them over their coats.

"Half-way done," he said.

She nodded and sat back on the table, tucking the gown under her thighs. Her hands were clamming and she wanted so much just to pass out and wake up with this whole thing being chalked up as a nightmare.

There was a knock on the door and Ziva watched as it opened, Dr. Blair peeking her head inside.

She smiled and shut the door behind her. "Hi guys," she said, "How are we doing?" She grabbed a stool and wheeled it over to sit in front of Ziva, hands clasped over the manila folder that held Ziva's chart.

"All right," Ziva said, "very nauseous."

Dr. Blair scrunched her face in sympathy. "You're on some pretty tough buggers. How's the cramping? Any heavy bleeding?"

"Some cramping, but not a lot of bleeding. None since I left the hospital."

"Have you been dizzy or pale looking – any of the symptoms you had before you came to the hospital?"

"Well," Ziva said, "I became dehydrated the other night after throwing up for quite some time. I was bit lightheaded then."

"Okay," Samantha nodded. She cocked her head to the side. "Can I take a look?"

Ziva gulped, nodded, took a deep breath and moved back on the table, Tony by her side, coming to stand near her head.

Dr. Blair picked up some things from the counter and the moved to sit between Ziva's legs – now shakily resting on the outstretched arms of the table.

Dr. Blair paused just before beginning. She looked up at her patient and remembered how she'd trembled through their last exam, her heart rate spiking on the monitor. "Ziva, I can only imagine how uncomfortable this is so I'll try to be as quick and gentle as possible."

"It's fine," she pushed out, eyes locked with her partner's.

"Okay, but if you need me to stop for a minute, I can do that." Samantha looked at Tony and he nodded, knowing he would be the one to voice Ziva's limit.

"I will be fine." Ziva said.

She soon felt Dr. Blair moving her utensils inside of her and so she locked her eyes shut and tried to focus on the gentle movement of Tony's hand across her forehead. For a few moments that tactic seemed to work well enough. She was counting her breaths and the number of times that Tony's hand passed slowly over her forehead.

_Once. _

_Twice._

_A third time. _

_The fourth._

But after awhile it wasn't enough. There was something foreign inside of her and that was frightening. She was scared and she was slipping. She was about to slip to somewhere else; somewhere she didn't want to be.

She turned her head to the side, as if that could get her away. She was making a conscious effort, though, to stay here and to not be confused into drifting somewhere else, so she opened her eyes and concentrated on those of her partner. He was so focused on her. He was so there and his eyes betrayed how much he was hurting for her.

"Tony, I –" she croaked.

He squatted down so that he was at eye level with her and gripped her hand. "I know, babe, I know. You're doing good."

"Scared," she finished.

He kissed her hand. "I know," he looked down at Dr. Blair – she was still concentrating on her examinations. He didn't know how much more Ziva could take, but he also knew that stopping and then starting again could possibly do more harm than good. Instead, he focused on just getting her through the next few minutes.

"Hey, I was thinking that tonight, if you're feeling okay we go out – maybe for a walk along the Potomac or just around the neighborhood. You know, get some fresh air. Maybe it'll make you feel a bit better."

She nodded and tried to force some semblance of a smile, but it just caused a tear to slip from the corner of her eye. She wanted to take a deep breath but she was sure that her chest would constrict and collapse in on her. Yes, fresh air sounded good right now.

He smiled back at her and rubbed his hand back through her hair.

Dr. Blair looked up at her patient, "Ziva, you're doing great. We're almost done. Just relax."

"See, almost done," Tony whispered, still standing as close as he possibly could.

"We could….take the m-m-metro down to….the tidal basin."

And though he could barely hear the whispered words she pushed out, he smiled and kissed her hand again. "Yeah, exactly. You love it down there." He said. "I bet the Jefferson will be lit up if we go after dark. That's always nice." He ran another hand through her hair.

Samantha finished the exam a few minutes later and Ziva reached up to wipe the dampness that had began to form beneath her eyes. She sat up slowly, rolling her shoulders and trying to regain some sense of her self and her dignity.

Dr. Blair slipped her gloves into the trash and washed her hands. She turned back to Tony and Ziva and sat down on her stool. "So, Ziva," she said, "Physically you look good – both overtly and inside. You're healing and I don't see any sign of infection. Of course, I'll want to confirm that with that with the blood sample results, but I'm hopeful."

"So what does that mean?" Tony asked.

"So what I am going to do is cut your antibiotic dosage in half, but I still want you to finish the prescription. I still want you to take it easy. This isn't an infection that we see too often so I can't really predict all the symptoms or side effects you'll see."

Ziva nodded and then carefully asked, "When can I return to normal activities?"

Samantha smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear, "Well that depends what type of normal activity you're referring to. Work: I'd say you could go back next week if you're feeling up to it, same thing with heavy physical activity, that being said, I'd wait a week for sex; just to make sure you're all healed and don't have any discomfort."

Ziva nodded and looked down. She wasn't sure that Tony would ever sleep with her again after this week.

"So Ziva, the other thing I wanted to talk to you about was following you full time. You mentioned that you wanted to switch over to this practice for your general OBGYN needs. Is that something you're still interested in?"

"Yes." She said, "I…um…haven't been seen much since I was evaluated in the field last summer. I know it's not the…prudent thing to do, but…I,"

"Okay. Its fine." Dr. Blair said, saving her patient from having to explain why she's been avoiding internal exams for over a year. Samantha could connect the dots – _especially_ after watching her go through the last two. "With that knowledge, though, I don't know then which of your healed damage is from this incident or last summer. I'm going to want to monitor everything."

"I understand," Ziva said and Tony squeezed her hand.

"Other than that," Dr. Blair smiled, "I think we're all set. I'll want to see you again in a couple of weeks."

* * *

**Please let me know what you thought and thanks as always. **

**Cara**


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: Sorry for the delayed update. Hope you enjoy. **

**Chapter Sixteen**

_Albany, Saturday, October 1__st__. _

Ziva was pulling into the driveway of the hotel when Rachel's eyes drifted open. She pushed herself up further in the seat and rubbed her eyes. So here they were.

"That was fast," she murmured.

"Car rides _do_ go by faster when you are sleeping."

Rachel nodded. She fixed her hair and shirt as Ziva parked the car. They grabbed their bags out of the back of the car and checked into their hotel room.

Once inside, Rachel flopped down on her bed and buried her face in the pillow. _So here they were_. She turned her face to the side and caught Ziva's questioning glance. "I'm just taking a twenty minute nap, then we'll go." She explained.

Ziva raised her hands in peace. "I am on your schedule."

Rachel planted her head back down and closed her eyes. This had all happened very fast. It seemed she had gone from seeing her mother's picture on TV to all of sudden sitting in a hotel room about to meet her again.

Well, for the first time, really. The first time that she would remember. The first time that mattered to her.

There was a weighted presence beside her and then the bed sank down and Ziva placed a hand on her shoulder. She held it there for a few moments – moving back and forth every few seconds and then she sighed.

"Rachel."

The younger girl didn't move, but merely groaned. She turned over and regarded her friend. Rachel ran a hand threw her hair and sat up. "You must think I have completely lost it."

Ziva threw an arm around her shoulder and pulled her head down into her. "Of course not." She paused. "Well, maybe a little."

Rachel's eyes widened.

"I'm kidding." She smiled. "I don't think you have lost it, but I do understand if you'd like to get dinner and then drive back to home."

Rachel sighed. "I would love that, but…" She stared at the clock on the bedside table for a moment. "But I think I need to go."

"I agree."

Rachel paused and then nodded. She pushed herself off of the bed. "Okay."

"Okay," Ziva reaffirmed. "Then, let's go."

_A half hour later _

All too quickly she had given her a tight hug, told her that she would do great and then suddenly been behind the loud thud of the car door.

This was all her now. Rachel was on her own.

She stood on the side of the road, one hand still on the car door, and looked at the house across the street. Her mother lived there.

_Lived_.

She had a life inside that house that did not include her – or Jacob.

Rachel turned back towards the car and Ziva gave her a reassuring smile. She _could_ do this.

She crossed the street quickly and with a purpose. The walkway was curvy and would take too long to get her to the front door, so she crossed the grass instead.

And then again, all too quickly, she was up the two stairs and standing in front of a forest green front door.

Her hand jutted out to ring the bell, but she quickly retracted it.

She turned back again and caught Ziva staring at her from inside the car. Ziva waved and Rachel turned back to the door as her gaze fell on the bell.

What was the worst that could happen? _Rejection_? She was pretty sure she'd been through that before.

Her finger pushed the bell before she could even think of backing out again and she nearly jumped as she heard it echo through the house.

Rachel looked down at the ground and then counted to ten. It would be really embarrassing if she were to pass out on her estranged mother's front stoop. Hopefully Ziva would move quickly enough and get her out of there before things escalated too quickly.

She took a deep breath and tucked a few errant strands of hair behind her ear. She rolled her shoulders. She wanted this, she did.

The dead bolt clicked over and suddenly the door in front of her gave way to a woman, dressed in jeans and a cable-knit sweater – dirty blonde hair sitting perfectly on her shoulders – smiling politely at this stranger at her door.

"Hello," she said. "May I…uh…help you?" She smiled, but not out of happiness to see her daughter or recognition that she knew this girl, but awkward politeness.

Rachel shifted on her feet. "Uh…hi."

The woman regarded her.

Rachel exhaled and a nervous laugh came from her throat. "You … um…don't know who I am…do you?"

The woman shook her head and pursed her lips. "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't." she shrugged, still leaning on the propped open door. "Have we met?"

Rachel rocked back on her heels and nodded, her jaw tight. "Yup. Um…You …uh…well," she looked over her shoulder. Ziva was sitting in the driver's seat now. The window was cracked open and her eyes were focused in on Rachel.

She turned back to the woman. "I'm Rachel." She said. "Rachel Katherine Williams."

And Victoria's mouth dropped just the slightest of bits. And a small and terrified look of recognition came over her face. She swallowed.

"Rachel." she repeated.

She nodded, lip pinched between her bottom teeth.

"I…wow." Victoria took a deep breath. "You're so – grownup." She paused and then looked down. "You in college or…?"

"I graduated from Georgetown a year and a half ago. I'm…I'm an NCIS agent."

Victoria blinked – once, twice. "Oh."

Rachel nodded, her hands beginning to clam.

Victoria looked behind her, into the house, and then back at Rachel. Her daughter. "Would you like to come in?"

Rachel's face lit up. "I'd love to."

_Saturday, October 1__st__, Late Afternoon, _

He stared at the ring, perched delicately in the velvet box. He wasn't sure if it were perfect enough. Was it worthy to sit on her finger for the rest of her life? He ran a hand through his hair. It wasn't ostentatious. The diamond was set low. Bill, the jeweler, had said it was durable. Ziva would test that guarantee for sure.

"Having second thoughts?" Bill asked.

"It's a big commitment." Tony responded.

"Yeah," Bill sighed, "Marriage sure is."

Tony barked out a laugh and then composed himself. He didn't want to be rude. "It's not the marriage," he explained, "I would just hate it if she didn't like the ring."

"Oh," Bill's eyes widened. "Well, I mean, if the ring is your biggest problem, then you're in better shape than most of the guys that come in here."

Tony smiled. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"I'm sure she'll like it," Bill smiled. "And if, in the off chance she doesn't, you know where to find me."

"Yes I do, Bill. I certainly do." Tony stuck out his hand. "Thanks for all the help."

"My pleasure Tony, best of luck to –"

The ringing of Tony's cell phone cut off Bill's well wishes and the jeweler raised his eyebrows as Tony pulled it out of his pocket. "The woman of the hour," he smiled.

"Good luck explaining your whereabouts." Bill said.

Tony smiled and then made his way outside. As he stepped out onto the Georgetown sidewalk, he answered his phone. "Hey." He said. He turned and began walking towards his car.

"Hi," she responded, "So I am sitting in the car. She just went inside."

He thought about what she had said. "She went inside Victoria's house?" he repeated, slightly shocked.

"I know." She sighed. "I feel the same."

He laughed. "You must be going absolutely nuts."

"I thought about following her," she admitted. "But…that might have been over stepping my bounds."

"Eh. I think the bounds are a little bit blurry."

"They really are." She lapsed into silence for a moment. "So…what have you been doing today?"

"Oh, you know, lamenting your absence."

She laughed. "Cute, Tony."

"The truth."

"Mhmm." She hummed. "So … really, what have you been doing?"

"Um…well," he smiled, _I picked up your engagement ring_. He couldn't say that. It would ruin the surprise. "I went to the gym and got us some… groceries." He made a mental note to actually go to the supermarket. Well, first he had to determine what the fridge was lacking.

She paused, sensing something suspicious about his explanation. "How…productive of you." She said.

"You know, I try." He responded. And he wasn't dumb enough to think that she actually believed him, so he quickly turned the conversation back to Rachel. "So how was she on the drive?"

Ziva let out a heavy sigh. "She was very nervous. I thought she was going to suggest we turn around once we reached the hotel – but she…she knows she needs to do this."

"You still think it's going to end badly," he asked.

"She invited her in."

"She invited her in." He repeated. "That can't be a bad sign."

"I should have brought a book." Ziva said. She looked around the car for something to occupy herself with, but came up empty handed.

"Need some _entertainment_?" Tony chuckled. "I could…tell you some _stories_."

"DiNozzo," she laughed, "You are terrible."

"All for you, baby," he sang.

Ziva groaned, but it was anything if not laced with affection. They stayed on the phone for quite some time. That is, until that front door opened again and Rachel stepped out. She turned back and hugged the woman and then nodded.

"She's out. I'll call you later, love."

* * *

_Three-Thirty, Wednesday, October 13__th_

Rachel was filing paperwork from the case that the Major Case Response Team had just closed, well _some_ of the MCRT, when Gibbs came up and took a seat on the side of her desk.

He silently sipped his coffee for a moment and she waited for him to talk.

She continued ridding her of arm of paperwork – her back to him; she knew what he wanted to talk about. Had it been about the case, he would've just come right out and asked her a question. This was personal though. And he was looking to siphon information from her. Information he knew she probably wasn't supposed to share.

After a few moments, she turned and leaned against the cabinet. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"How's Ziva?" He didn't waist any time.

Rachel scratched the side of her head and chose her words carefully. She knew he'd be able to read her. "She's okay. She's still a bit sick – the antibiotic," she clarified, "And she's a bit shaken up."

"Yeah?" he asked. He took another sip of coffee.

"I mean…yeah, she's not really the hospital type." She shrugged her shoulders as if that fact alone could explain why the whole thing _shook her up_.

"No. She's not…" he stared at her.

Rachel crossed her arms over her chest. "I was going to go see if Ducky had finished all of his autopsy notes."

He nodded and moved off of her desk, coming a bit closer to her. "Williams, do I _need_ to know something else here?" He asked.

"_Need_?" she repeated. She shook her head. "No." She said, "They're _fine_. Tony will be back Friday and Ziva…Ziva will be back Monday."

"That's not what I mean, Rachel," he said. He narrowed his eyes at her. "You know that, though."

She laughed, desperately needing to break the tension. "I don't know what you want from me, Gibbs." She lifted her hands in the air in surrender. "I saw them yesterday. They're tired, but she's doing better. She had a doctors appointment today, but I haven't talked to them so that's _all_ I know."

Gibbs walked away then, gabbing his keys from his desk drawer. He had that all knowing look on his face. "That's not _all_ you know, Williams."

She didn't respond. Rachel sighed.

Blame it on the gut.

It took almost all afternoon for Tony and Ziva to decide to take that walk they'd talked about – or _he'd_ talked about. They'd gotten home and she'd sunk down into the corner of the couch and wrapped a blanket tightly and protectively around herself. She'd furiously rubbed up and down her arms.

He'd watched her from the other room and it had broken another piece of his already fractured heart. This scene had played out for him way too many times in the past year.

Frankly, he was tired of it, but the light at the end of the tunnel had yet to blind his eyes. And so, he continued to watch her in pain, despite the fact that that quota had been overfilled last summer.

So he'd carefully approached her and he'd slowly taken a seat next to her on the couch. "Can I hold you?" he'd asked.

She had nodded and once again she'd look so small and so fragile, but she'd come out from the corner of the couch and laid against his side, her head slowly falling into his lap.

Ziva had stared at him for a while then – searching his eyes for something to answer all of her questions. He didn't have any answers though; he was running out and so he just stared back. He stared back, hand cupping the back of her head and thumb dancing back and forth.

They'd stayed like that for some time. Ziva had closed her eyes for a little while and Tony had dared to try and relax for even just a few minutes.

And then just as he'd thought about reaching for the remote to turn the TV on mute, she pushed herself off his lap, "Do you still want to go for a walk?" she asked.

He looked at her for a moment and then smiled. She was trying. "Yeah." He said. He kissed the side of her head. "Sure, let's go."

She stood up off the couch, "I'm going to go get changed and put on a sweater."

He watched her walk away and then he got up. He looked for something to do – he reached over and straightened the pillows on the couch. Tony raked his hands through his hair and moved to the front hall closet, looking for a jacket. He found one and slipped it over his arms.

And then there was a soft knock on the front door. His eyebrows netted together. They weren't expecting anyone. He looked at the time on his watch – it was approaching four.

"Hey, Ziva?" He called, "You expecting Rach?"

She didn't respond – she must not have heard him. He moved to the front door and stole a look through the peephole and no, _nope_ it was not Rachel standing on the other side of the door.

Rather, standing unassumingly at his front door was none other than Leroy Jethro Gibbs himself.

He unlocked the dead bolt and pulled the door open. "Boss," he said, an awkward combination of a laugh and smile coming over his face. "Wasn't expecting you."

"I know," Gibbs said.

He stared at Tony and that's when Tony realized that Gibbs _probably_ wanted to come in because he _probably_ wasn't here to talk to Tony in the doorway.

Tony opened the door fully, letting Gibbs in. It was the first time that Gibbs had been over since it had become his apartment too and quite honestly, it made him just a little uncomfortable. Sure, Gibbs knew they were together – he knew they were living together, for all Tony knew he knew that Tony had already bought her a ring.

"I'll…uh…go find Ziva," he said, pointing down towards the bedroom and then heading off that way. He walked into the bedroom just as Ziva was fastening a scarf around her neck and coming through the doorway.

He put his hand on her shoulder and pushed her back into the room, nudging the door shut with his foot.

"Tony," she stammered, "Dr. Blair said that –"

"Gibbs is in our kitchen."

She laughed then. And that made his unease all worth it because he hadn't seen that look of slight girlish embarrassment on her face in days.

"I am sorry that I even dared to think that..." she managed to say through her giggles.

"Ms. David," he shook his head, "You have a dirty mind." He stepped a bit closer and covered her mouth with his. He was surprised to find her so willing to accept his contact. Her hands crept up to wrap around his neck and she pulled on his lower lip – but Gibbs _was_ just down the hallway.

And so he pulled away and rested his forehead against hers. "I love you," he whispered, lips now next to her ear.

She smiled, unclasped her hands from his neck, and walked past him, making her way out of the room and down the hallway.

She found Gibbs in the living room – browsing the pictures that adorned the fireplace. There were a couple of she and Rachel – one from her graduation and another from when they'd both been much younger. There were others of the team – some that Abby had taken at Thanksgiving of last year and a couple of older ones that McGee had given her when she'd first moved in here. And then there was the one in the middle. It was her favorite. An older couple had offered to take she and Tony's picture when they'd been on Martha's Vineyard this past summer. They were on the beach, watching the sunset; she'd sworn she'd only looked that happy a few times in her life.

"Hello, Gibbs," she said.

He turned, slightly surprised.

So she had caught him off guard.

He took her in. She had a bit of color back in her face. It was more than she had the last time he'd seen her – just after she'd passed out in the squadroom. She looked…drained though – like she looked after long cases – the ones that hit too close to home. He watched her sink down and settle herself on the edge of the couch.

"You and DiNozzo heading out?" he asked, nodding to her scarf and zippered jacket.

"For a walk, yes." She said, "I haven't had fresh air in days."

He nodded and then moved towards the door, hands stuffed in his pockets.

"Gibbs." she said and that stopped him.

He turned and looked at her for a moment. And then he came back over towards her. He pulled the ottoman toward the couch and sat down in front of her. His Ziver looked like she had been through the ringer over the past few days. He knew that this amounted to more than they were telling him. He could quite put his finger on what, but she looked shaken.

"Gibbs, is there a reason you came by?" She asked.

"Wanted to lay some eyes on you." he said. His stare was more powerful than anything she'd ever experienced from her own father. It bore straight into her and it looked to take on all of her problems as his own.

But Ziva knew it didn't work that way and Gibbs wasn't fool enough to try.

She nodded. "Well," she said, "I'm … on the mend."

"You doing okay?" he asked.

She shrugged, "I have been better." It was a quiet admittance, but Gibbs wouldn't have accepted a lie and he deserved as much truth as she could possibly muster.

"I can imagine."

She pursed her lips and tried to think of something else to say, but she came up empty. She looked towards the hallway and found Tony leaning against the wall – watching her – him – them.

She smiled just the smallest bit when she caught his eye – that bubbling sense of comfort creeping back into her – and he took that as a sign to push himself off the wall and take a seat next to her on the couch.

He would have been fine to keep a respectable amount of distance between them, Gibbs, their boss and paternal figurehead _was_ sitting in front of him, but as soon as he came down onto the couch, Ziva shifted just a little bit closer to him and so Tony ran his hand up and down her back a few times before moving so she could rest against his shoulder.

Ziva sighed after a lapse in conversation, "I am looking forward to getting back to work." She said.

"Ziver," Gibbs shook his head, "It's only been … three and a half days. Take it easy, will ya'?"

"I know, but …" she digressed again. "I like being at work with you all."

"And we love having you," Tony said. "Right, boss?"

"Care more about your overall health though than a few days with out you in the field."

"Well," she said, "I will be back on Monday. And Tony tomorrow."

Gibbs chuckled again and then stood up. It seemed he'd accomplished all he wanted to in this impromptu visit.

He leaned forward, laid a hand on the side of Ziva's head and pressed a kiss to her temple. "Love you, Ziver." He whispered.

And it made her lip quiver.

He straightened back and then aimed a look at Tony. "Take care of her," he said and then he was out their door with a soft click.

* * *

**A/N2: I'd really love to know what you thought!**


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